Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Intimate Encounter - Down the Fence Line


An incident encountered 7/02/08
One late afternoon I was briskly walking along, on my way around to the loo located at the back of the building of where I work in Innisfail, Far North Queensland. All of a sudden, the keys I held in my right hand flung out of my grasp.  Stunned, in shock and disbelief, I had instantly felt a sharp piercing pain on the side of my little finger. I didn't know what had just stung me but had my suspicions as I looked around in the man-made built area where there were no clues immediately visible.  As the pain intensified and knowing I have little immunity to such insect bites, I picked up my keys and rushed off to get some 'Stop Itch' cream from the chemist across the street. This cream I find works miracuously for me, minimizing both pain and swelling.


Afterwards, and still needing 'to go' you know where,  I returned to the area cautiously to try and unfathom the mystery. Ah ha, further down the fence line, about 3 meters along from where I was stung, there going unnoticed was a little hive of busy territorial aggressive Paper wasps building their nest discreetly underneath the pole rail of the fence line. I have only ever been bitten once before by one of these kind since my move to Qld and you never forget it.

Pentax K10D
Lens smc Pentax-DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL
Shutter Speed 1/125
Aperature F8
ISO Sensitivity 100
7/02/08 - 3:55pm

REDBUBBLE GALLERY

3 comments:

  1. Those look like the yellow jackets we have here in FL, vicious little things and terrible painful!

    Thanks for posting your blog link on FB. I'll enjoy perusing, I love your work!

    Carlynne
    www.hershbergerhuff.blogspot.com

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  2. Eek, I hate paper wasps! I got stung by one as a child below my eye when I was living in East Innisfail and I've been terrified of them since. I'm kind of cruel to them these days - when I see them I have to attack them with fire.

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  3. Yeh yeh ... nasty nasty bites these aggressive wasps have. I react badly if I don't get some sort of cream on straight away.

    And guess what, I found another nest just being started after I had finished this post. I spray them. Fire is good for the really big nests.

    Our survival instinct - once bitten, twice shy. Katanya, living on a banana farm now, means you will need to be constantly on guard as, you will no doubt, discover a lot more nasty critters around. We know respectively how to keep our distance, like when I took these photos. The close ups were done in Photoshop haha! as I didn't have my big zoom lens set up on the camera.

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