This pretty girl is the Vase-cell Mud-dauber Wasp (Sceliphron formosum) a type of mud-dauber wasp that builds pot-shaped nests out of mud. She pops into the granny flat each day, makes her nest in the kitchen cupboard out of mud, fills them up with spiders from the garden by stinging and paralysing them. Then she lays an egg and her children will consume the spiders before turning into an adult wasp. She also goes about the garden pollinating plants. While she knows her way in and out of the flat, some afternoons when the sun is shining through the south window she tries a short cut. This is handy for me as it gives me the chance to get some nice macro shots of her before showing her the door!
So she is a plant pollinator, spider exterminator and good looking to boot. What more could you ask for?
PS I don’t know what her sting is like as she apparently does sting friends!
