Cicada eating wasps

These wasps sting and eventually eat cicadas.  We discovered one in the process, then had it climb my leg and finally realized there were dozens of the wasps underground nests near the Iowa playground.  Fascinating and a bit scary.  The kids investigated for over 30 minutes.
The first photo shows the wasp fighting with the cicada.

 G. then calmly photographed the wasp climbing my pants-leg, somewhat reminiscent of seeing hundreds of ants drag an injured scorpion up a wall in Mexico.

The kids then discovered there were dozens of nests below this play structure - perhaps the sand was easy to excavate?  Here several investigate, each from a distance they found comfortable.