I went out to get the mail yesterday, only to find this Polistes wasp guarding the door to the mailbox. He was apparently rather chilly, because he didn't move much at all. I had time enough to go back in the house, find the camera, mount a macro lens, mount the flash, put it all on the mono-pod and go back out. Even after all that I still managed to get about 20 shots in before he got sick of the attention and left. Thinking I had plenty to make an ID, I turned to the BugGuide, only to learn about the P. perplexus/P. carolina quandary. Tough to tell them apart, especially when I happened to come across a male. Still, if anybody'd care to take a stab at a positive ID, these are probably the best of the lot.