Occurred on July 2022 / Dohr, Germany
: During the summer months of the last few years, I have been intensively involved in observing, photographing, and filming eusocial wasps. Many of these photographs and videos, including this one, were taken in our garden in Dohr (located in the Eifel region) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a nature photographer and filmmaker, these insects are very productive study subjects and performers for me. I spent numerous hours observing and analyzing their behavior until they became accustomed to me (and I to them). Then I succeeded in taking extraordinary photographs and videos over time.
At a feeding station, I was able to take many flight shots of the hornets in 10 to 20x slow motion (250 - 500 fps) during the last weeks and thereby their breathtaking flight maneuvers then really come into their own for the human eye. They master spot landing, full braking, attack flight, collision flight, sideways and backward flight, descent on the spot and probably many more maneuvers.
