Eastern Cicada-killer Wasps at peak activity across city blocks

July 29, 2026

(Sphecius speciosus) are at peak activity across the waterfront and inland parks this month — 19 sightings since late June, with seven logged just in the past four days from Greenwood Heights and Prospect Park to the waterfront edge and Herbert Von King Park, including sightings along Joralemon Street and in Herbert Von King Park on July 28. These are North America's largest native solitary wasps, two inches long and formidable-looking, yet they rarely sting. Their midsummer timing is no accident: they emerge and hunt precisely when cicadas do, each female provisioning a single egg with a paralyzed cicada dragged back to her burrow.

That sightings are turning up across this many city blocks — from Greenwood Heights to Prospect Park to the waterfront edge — points to the persistence of suitable ground. Sparse vegetation, sandy margins, and bare soil patches still exist here in sufficient patchiness for a native insect with strict nesting requirements to establish and forage.

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