Hornets!

Hornets are definitely going to be an issue in my data collection. Not only am I having to fight them to even look for fly eggs, I think they are keeping the flies from laying eggs at all by eating them before they get a chance to.  The more hornets there are flying around my data collection sites, the less flies I see and therefore there's less or no eggs.  

I need to search the literature to see if there is any research on this. Hornets are most likely present on human remains as well and  there presence would be an additional variable in estimating the postmortem interval. 

I keep trying to get photos of the hornets, but they won't hold still and I have to dodge them the entire time. This was the only photo I could get today that wasn't blurry. It's a bald-faced hornet. (AKA bald hornet, white-faced hornet, white-tailed hornet, spruce wasp, blackjacket and bull wasp)

I took a photo of the carnage. All that's left of this fly is a wing and some legs. Ick.