A while ago, I was riding in a train between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The interior of the ScotRail class 170 turbostar train is a mass of plastic panelling and nylon seats. There are no windows one can open to let in fresh air, but at one of the stops, while a door was open, a wasp must have been let in. There was nothing inside that could be of interest to the wasp. Sometimes on trains there is the detritus of provisions people have brought with them for the journey and consumed, which might have provided some sustenance, but not, for some reason, in this particular carriage. The wasp buzzed its frustration against the window, doubtless keen to get outside in the countryside that we were speeding through.

Luckily for the wasp, no-one seemed overly perturbed by it. Wasps’ interactions with humans are usually accompanied by a flurry of whirling hands, panicked screaming, and/or a rolled up newspaper. However, either everyone in the carriage was unconcerned by its presence, or they were more afraid of embarrassment than they were of the wasp. The wasp in question was, to be more precise, probably Vespula vulgaris (I am no naturalist, but I imagine this is one of the most common ‘yellowjacket’ (the North American name for this kind of wasp) species in the area). These wasps build intricate paper nests from wood that they gather and chew to make into a pulp. Hearing the quiet “scritch scritch scritch” of a wasp gathering (untreated) wood with its mandibles is, to me, one of the many pleasures of spring and summer.

It is fair, I think, to say that most people regard wasps as pests even in their native habitat in Europe. This, perhaps, is mostly due to their ability to deliver a painful sting when they feel threatened, and their propensity to come into contact with humans because of a shared love of sugar. September in particular, when wasps are a bit groggy from the cold, has always been, to me, a time when wasp stings are more likely. I remember all too clearly trying to avoid them at breaktimes when at school. Picnics were also a time when they made a nuisance of themselves, hovering around the jam sandwiches just as you are about to eat them. Nowadays I mostly meet them at the recycling bins, where they are often to be found around the plastic drinks bottle bin trying to get at the last few drops of drink we leave behind.

However, wasps play a really important role in European ecosystems, and life without them is almost unthinkable. Besides pollinating plants when they visit flowers for nectar, wasps also hunt other insects to feed their young. In turn, wasps themselves are prey to various animals.

Perhaps because everyone on the train ignored the wasp, perhaps because it was so desperate to get out, or perhaps because there was nothing on the train it could use, I was suddenly struck by the fact that it did not belong there. At the same time, all the humans (some of whom were WASPs!), clearly did. If the wasp was incongruous with the train, were the humans in it incongruous with the world outside? Why weren’t we as desperate to get out of this fearful space of blue and white plastic?