03 February, 2012

Seven steps built by a mud wasp


When I look across to our mountain, to the clouds that come and go, sometimes I see seven steps to heaven  (Miles Davis). That first step is unattainable, and even if I could reach it, insubstantial. My foot would simply pass thru the water vapour. Earth-bound my mind turns to the legendary Seven Steps in District 6. Again, insubstantial, demolished during apartheid, living on in memory and music. In my living memory, that part of Cape Town has always been a green slope below the mountain, at the far edge of the city.

Seven Steps to Heaven


‘Scuse me. Going to do a little rain dance. Five millimetres in as many minutes!

---~~~0~~~---

Pot built by mud wasp

Our wasps build busily using paper or mud, a gift of our clay soil.  This tiny little pot, big enough to tuck a small chickpea in, would once have had a lid.

Newly applied wet mud on wasp nest

The mud dauber works steadily. Takes her a full day to build one chamber. There are at least seven hidden by now. Each cell is filled with a few spiders. She is NOT amenable to being photographed. The end of the ‘tomb’ is carefully closed, leaving the spiders to be eaten by the wasp egg, when it hatches. She is also meticulous about camouflaging her nest with random splatters of mud, concealing the regular structure of ‘seven steps’ as each cell is completed.

Mud dauber working on her nest

Mud dauber at her nest

Sceliphron spirifex in Mike Picker’s Field Guide to Insects of South Africa.

Each day the wasp's nest gains another layer

Each coil in each layer carefully smoothed off

At the end of her day's work the mud dauber seals the cell








Pictures by Jurg and Diana, words by Diana of  Elephant's Eye 
- wildlife gardening in Porterville, near Cape Town in South Africa
(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink. Those are my links.) 

41 comments:

  1. Diana - Thank you - fascinating to see the wasp nest as it develops :) How long did it take to build?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dani - I noticed about a week ago, that she had the first few rows. Then another one each day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a very interesting observation on a wasp! I think we also have a counterpart of that one here, as i see those structures here too, but not common, maybe a different species. And those seven ladders in the sky are so serendipitous, or maybe ominous. 7 is a very unique number, there are 7 days/ week, 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 musical notes, 7 energy centers in the human body, 7 dimensions!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Diana you are now the recipient of the Versatile Blogger Award! http://bit.ly/yhCUbI Hooray!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazing how each level is smoothed off. Pollinators are such remarkable builders. They put our meager efforts to shame.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fascinating post Diana, amazing what nature gets up to in our gardens.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I too have had glitches with Blogger - although I suppose in the old days someone would have said to me that you get what you pay for. Wonderful pictures of the mud wasp and her nest - just remarkable.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Link to Patty's Versatility Award post http://womenandthegarden.blogspot.com/2012/02/much-appreciated-versatility-award.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fascinating creature. We have mud and paper wasps but nothing as beautiful as this artful pottery she is creating...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Great photos of this interesting wasp! Unfortunately I have never seen anything like this in my garden, but I also appreciate my wild bees.
    Have a nice day!
    Elke

    ReplyDelete
  11. Amazing what a little creature can achieve! The wonder of nature. Thanks for sharing that with us.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow, what a clever little potter. What if you could hire a swarm of them to produce pots and amphorae for the garden?

    ReplyDelete
  13. I've had random commenting problems lately, too, with no definitive explanation why. Cosmic weirdness, I guess. It's truely incredible what an artist a mud dauber is. Something that has to be taught to humans is an inherent survival skill to an insect many would consider a pest. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  14. oh my goodness I love this! what beautiful architechure and labour of love.

    ReplyDelete
  15. So much to learn from one blog post!

    ReplyDelete
  16. So the siders are entombed, waiting to be eaten by the babies! Sounds gruesome, but fascinating.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Oh Wow Diana, what amazing photographs you took! Thanks for sharing. This is all new to me.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Fun! I just discovered a paper wasp nest hidden inside a upside-down pot. So delicate. Thanks for hanging in there for the CNPS explanation, I hope Ms C. Mouse will add to this, she's much more active than I am.

    Pity about the blog trouble. Hope it will just resolve itself.

    ReplyDelete
  19. The animal kingdom is an amazing thing and between a wasp and swallow carrying a mouth full of mud and a weaver trailing a single leave or reed strip to bult a nest it just shows that it helps to be patient.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks for the link to the Seven Steps. What an interesting, heartbreaking story.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Interesting post. I'm impressed you got so close, did you get stung in the process of this exercise?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Mo - no, she is a lady. If there are intruders about, she waits patiently till we bugger off. Telephoto combined with shaky hands is a bit blurred.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great post! Good photos!
    They look much the same here. Since they kill spiders, we let them build wherever they want to. Plus they are peaceful and don't sting like the more agressive wasps do.
    Have a great day!
    Lea
    Lea's Menagerie
    Mississippi, USA

    ReplyDelete
  24. HI diana, wondrous, mysterious, alien creatures are wasps - nearly as much as Blogger!

    ReplyDelete
  25. What interesting and industrious little insects they are (and beautifully colored, too). The detail of the nests in your photos is amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Fascinating shots and information! Sorry about the difficulty with the Blogger comments--I've heard other folks say the same thing. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Diana, the 7 Steps link tells me access is Forbidden... The musical link explains the importance of the district but not the steps--would you mind just a quick explanation of what they represent?

    Loved the photos/info on the wasp--you are very patient!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Stacy - might you try the link again. Just checked, it works for me, and Cindy read it.

    To anyone who has had an association with old District Six, the very mention of the ‘Seven Steps’ immortalised in Taliep Petersen’s musical ‘District Six’, stirs up deep emotions. The Seven Steps of stone worn by the thousands who climbed these to work, to home, to school, to play, to bok, to church, to mosque, to shop, to celebrate and to mourn, were part of the great big soul of the district. Today, so many years after its destruction, the Seven Steps stands out as the premier symbol of District Six. The District Six museum has it as an integral part of its brand and logo. There is a reverence at its mention – seven after all is God’s number. Seven is the dobbelaars ‘Lucky Number’. - from that link

    ReplyDelete
  29. Oh Diana, I see these marvels and think of the Creator. You and your camera skills were in the right place at the perfect time
    p.s. like the way your mind free associates to link things together too
    p.p.s as wordpresser am testing out for comment probs

    ReplyDelete
  30. Addendum - No probs with that comment but in past have had some kind of X.... error. Now I always copy my comments before publishing as experience has shown that after the error if I try again I succeed and can just paste!

    ReplyDelete
  31. How amazing is that?? Great to capture that on camera! Well done. I guess that was a couple of hours, hey?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Barbie - a moment here, a moment there, over days as she worked.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Thanks in both places, Diana. :D

    ReplyDelete
  34. After I stopped twitching and shivering, I was more fully able to appreciate your post on wasps and their brood's lunch of spiders. I couldn't have taken those pictures, I'm far too big of a baby.

    Christine in Alaska, subzero and bugless

    ReplyDelete
  35. Diana,
    i love those images. What an extraordinary little creature to have working away in your garden. In England, our wasps used to scrape tiny pieces from our wooden garden furniture to make their nests; sometimes you could even hear them scraping.
    [As a WP user, I have had all sorts of problems commenting on Blogger blogs recently, so hope this one gets through...]

    ReplyDelete
  36. Wonderful photos, that nest is so delicate and well hidden among the mud. I had read about the new reply function but I cannot find it or get it working. I admit I didn't look far, Blogger has been more trouble than joy lately so I decided not to waste my time. Wordpress looks better and better these days.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Ah, I'm glad to know it's not just me having trouble leaving comments. I usually try first under open ID; if that doesn't work after a couple of tries, I switch to my Google login. -Jean

    ReplyDelete
  38. Diana -

    I love potter wasps - watching them build little amphora-shaped pots on my windowsill in Argentina is one of my few childhood memories from that time!

    James.
    http://orchids-on-a-balcony.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  39. Thanks for linking to this on my site, its certainly handy to know.

    Now I just need some time to go through your site ;)

    ReplyDelete
  40. Dvotee and I are battling Captcha to leave comments
    http://ourtinygarden.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/sites-that-use-blogger

    ReplyDelete

Photographs and Copyright

Photographs are from Diana Studer or Jurg Studer.
My Canon PowerShot A490

If I use your images or information, it will be clearly acknowledged with either a link to the website, or details of the book. If you use my images or words, I expect you to acknowledge them in turn.


Midnight in Darkest Africa

Midnight in Darkest Africa
For real time, click on the map.