Evidence of Global Warming?

Eating dinner this evening, we heard buzzing in the kitchen. We joked, that must be one heck of a big bug. Maybe its a giant bee, my husband said. Then we got up and looked into the kitchen. It WAS a giant bee!

My brave husband caught it in a plastic box, so we could take it outdoors. On close inspection, it LOOKS like a cicada killer (which rarely sting humans, so we didn’t need to be afraid of it). But according to sources on the internet, cicada killers typically emerge in mid- to late July. So either it’s a really early cicada killer, or it is something else…

Any ideas, friends?

UPDATE: It is a European Hornet, a new female looking for a place to build her nest.  We hope she is doing that in a nice tree somewhere and not attached to our house.