Nature collage

BY PETER SHEPHERD

The wasp hovers before our eyes, checking us out. She’s huge, really. If wasps were cars she’d be a yellow bus with black stripes, but curved and pointy like some funky space version. And she’s hovering in the air. Which is a very cool thing for a bus to do. My 7 year old daughter is deciding whether to step behind me or go with her other instinct and lean forward, going a little cross-eyed, meeting our inquisitive neighbour eye to eye.

Curiosity wins, and for a moment compound eyes and little-girl eyes regard each other

We’ve only taken a few steps from the back door. Where were we headed? We’ve forgotten, this mystery has caught us. Stepping past our humbuzzing visitor – she’s curving up and away over the roof of the house – we crouch down by the windowsill to see her handiwork: a multi-coloured mud container, built underneath a brick window ledge. She’s using the ledge as rain cover, but it’s the clay tube we start oohing over. You can see the new sections she’s added – the mud is fresher, darker – extending her sculpture along. Out from the end, though, is where our ooh is directed: a