A BBC reader sent in the above photo with a query as to what it was...
After several nights of finding bits of chopped-up leaves on the patio table, the cigar-shaped creation dropped out of Brian Mince's parasol... The object is about 17.8cm in length, mid-green colour and tapers up from about 1cm at one end to 2cm at the other...Other readers responded to his inquiry, one of whom provided this answer:
I suspect it's the work of a leaf cutting bee.
Leaf cutting bees are solitary bees (most people think all bees have colonies but the vast majority of species are solitary)... Normally leaf cutting bees find a suitable hole in a tree or fence post etc and then start lining it with leaves. They line a small section at the base of the hole to create a small cell. They stock the cell with pollen and lay a single egg. They then close the cell and start lining another (moving steadily closer to the hole's opening)...I've seen bees and wasps cutting things with their mandibles; I wonder how the bees get the leaf fragments to adhere together. Perhaps their salivary secretions are sticky.
The activity of leaf cutting bees can often be seen in gardens as leaves will have very neat semi-circles cut from them.
Hat tip to Fletcher for sending TYWKIWDBI the link.
Addendum: More info and pix at this link. And here. And especially here (credit for photo below).
Along those lines have you ever seen the work of carpenter bees? They bore extremely round holes into wood in order to lay their eggs. At my parents home in Indiana we had to replace the pressure treated and urethaned front door of the house because one of them bored a hole nearly through it.
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