Yesterday afternoon when I was locking up Northward Hill RSPB my attention was drawn to a flash of lime green at my feet, at first I thought it was a caterpillar being dragged off by some ants (there is a huge ant colony in the sandy soil by the reserve gate). A closer inspection revealed it to be being carried by a Red-banded Sand Wasp. I whizzed back to my car for my phone, by which time she had struggled with the paralysed caterpillar a yard up the steep incline. She then dug for a few seconds and a clearly already excavated hole appeared, she disappeared to check it out for a second or two then pulled the prey into it.
A most amazing sight and one that will stay with me for quite a while I watched some similar footage on Youtube and watched exactly the same, only in this clip she had pre-prepared the hole and blocked it with a rabbit dropping, very clever and even more so with mine as she’d obviously covered it in soil and must have remembered where it was.
The North Kent Marshes are a very special area and worth preserving at all cost.