I saw a brightly colured insect a week or so ago; and then again yesterday (well, probably not the same one!). Got a better look yesterday and saw that it looked like a fly, about half an inch long, front end vivid electric green and the back end bright red. As I was committing this to memory in order to look it up, it suddenly flew into a cobweb. No spider came, but the 'fly' just became more entangled as it struggled to free itself. I pulled it out, web and all, with a little twig and then, by gaining a purchase on the wood the fly was able to drag itself clear and flew off.
It was Chrysis ignita - a ruby-tailed cuckoo wasp; it doesn't sting, and is so nicknamed because they are a parasite of Mason bees, they add their own eggs to the nest, as the birds do.
Here's a similar tale from my pre-blog diary of May 2015 -
I noticed a Daddy-Long-Legs trying in vain to detach itself from a bit of cobweb on one of the porch shelves. I used to be so scared of them (DLLs not shelves!) but not so now, and I enclosed it in my hand, first so that I could get at the bit of web and then holding DLL's stuck leg in one hand and gently pulling at the strand of web in the other; the web came off and he flew away. There didn't seem to be a spider in the vicinity but DLL couldn't free himself unaided.
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