Ringed paper wasp
@pedro3111 I believe these are ringed paper wasps because this is the dominant species on this creek, but I use mainly the abdomen for ID's. What other characteristics do you suggest I also consider to differentiate it from other species which have similar conformations. In the mornings and while the temps are cooler, they tend to huddle, their wings covering their bodies I've had to jiggle the branches a bit to get them to activate sufficiently to be able to see their abdomen. This was too high up for me to do that.
pedro3111 commented
2mo
Zooming in on the photo you can see that they have yellow antennae with a black band in the middle, typical of the subgenus aphanilopterus, and they also appear to have a brown body with a black abdomen, and although you can't see the typical yellow ring on the abdomen, P.annularis is the only one in the subgenus aphanilopterus to have this color in the USA (I could risk P.metricus as a possibility, as the color is very similar, but the antennae of P.metricus are completely black, so this possibility is ruled out)
