As I walked home with my trophy, I passed John and Lesli next door.
“Oh, you got it first! I wanted that!” Lesli remarked, disappointed.
That’s Reason #128 that I love Wallingford: when someone sees a wasps nest, they think “ooo…art project!”
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Beautiful specimen! I used to collect such as these for science studies in my preschool classroom!
But be mindful re: beautiful unfamiliar nests — I was photographing a gorgeous football-sized swirl nest in the trees on daily walks in Utah recently. We would wait for the one peering face to emerge from the one tiny hole in the sun, say “Good morning!”, I’d take its picture a few times, and then we’d go on our way. Out of curiosity, I enhanced those photos and identified the residents as bald-faced wasps… turns out extremely aggressive if they sense their hive is threatened… a hive that houses between 100 and 700. Just sayin’ … just because it’s purty doesn’t mean it’s safe to pluck it. (Bald-faced wasps usually abandon their hives in late fall while the survivors slumber in trees, so at least for them there’s a point when it’s no longer an active home. But.)
In my experience, the hazard is that it will smell a little funky after a while.