(Dennis Forbes) wrote:


I have a tree in the front yard of my recently purchased house, and I
was wondering if a kind arborist out there could identify the tree,
-snip-
I've put several pictures at
http://www.yafla.com/~dforbes/tree/index.htm.

Thank you for reading. Have a great day.

Thank you for posting the answer on your page. I don't know about
the tree, but I think you have the insect mis-identified.

Look at the pictures of a Yellow Jacket & a Bald Faced Hornet beside
each other at
http://www.borealforest.org/insects/insects15.htm

Close-- but the Yellow jacket has Yellow stripes, and they begin his
abdomen. Your insect is a Bald Faced Hornet. [still likely there for
the same purpose- eating insects] When the leaves drop you'll
probably see a large paper nest. Wait until a couple hard frosts &
you can bring the empty nest inside as a souvenir.

I went googling for a picture of the nest and found this page;
http://www.unexco.com/gallery/hornets.html
which says that hornet "is actually a large yellow jacket and not a
true hornet". It's been a long time since I studied entymology, so I
might stand corrected on that count.


Jim