These bright red birds are pretty to look at, no doubt, but they also make a steady diet of flying insects like wasps. They can be seen catching them in the air and will pillage their nests as well.

Gavin Broad: "Wasps are the lions of the insect world" It's the parasitoid wasps that do this work for us and their methods - like those of Ampulex compressa - are often ingenious. I'm fascinated ...

like their close relatives the honeybee, pack a powerful sting. That combination of nuisance and pain makes wasps many people's least favourite animals. Perhaps more than any other insect ...