Posts in Category: spider
Costa Rica! Writing or zig-zag spider
Spiny-backed Orb-weaver Spider: Selva Verde Lodge and Reserve, Sarapique Valley, Costa Rica, December 2023 — We found several of these “writing” or “zig-zag” spiders as the locals call them (because of the patterns in the web), under one of the cabins at Selva Verde on a morning photo walk. I put the macro capabilities of the 100-400 IS zoom to work. This is a member of one of two genus of spiders collectively called spiny-backed because they share the pointy spins. Both are in the Orb-weaver family. OM-Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 454mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. -1.0EV to keep detail in the spider against the dark background. This shot was at ISO 25600 by the way. 🙂 Processed in Photomator.
Tarantula!
Tarantula. Slot Canyon. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, Cochiti New Mexico
We did not see much wildlife at Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument near Cochiti New Mexico when we visited last month…a Townsend’s Solitaire, a Jackrabbit, and, as we walked up Slot Canyon, this lovely Tarantula. Now I know there is a slight risk in positing this image, as some of my followers surely will react negatively, but the Tarantula is, as I see it, a lovely bug. As spiders go, it is furry and friendly looking. It is, of course, also very large. This one was maybe 5 inches leg-tip to leg-tip. One of the (many) things I love about my wife Carol is that it did not send her clawing her way up the side of the canyon. We both watched it scuttled along the Canyon floor working its way around us on its way down. Tarantulas live solitary lives, mostly out of sight, but they do come out in search of mates in season. This one may have been on that errand. And though they are big, they rarely bite (they have to be really provoked to bite a human) and the bite is more irritating than harmful. People (not people I know personally, but people nonetheless) keep them as pets. I was happy to see this one, free and on about its Tarantula business, in Slot Canyon.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in PhotoShop Express on my Android tablet.
Three’for!
Black-eyed Susan with three insects. Emmon’s Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
I actually did not see the third bug in this Black-eyed Susan shot until I got it home and was processing it on the computer. The bee is obvious, as is the beetle. I am not certain what beetle it is, though it appears to be in the same family as Milkweed and Asparagus beetles. The spider is a Yellow Orb Weaver. Emmon’s Preserve, in Kennebunkport. The mosquitoes were so bad that my natural repellent was useless against them, and it was all I could do to stand still long enough to get a few shots here. I am very surprised there are not any mosquitoes in the image!
Sony RX10iii at 554mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Funny story (about a spider). Happy Sunday!
Garden Spider, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Kennbunk ME
Funny story! The other day I was out at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Wildlife Management Area, taking pics and enjoying the day. When I got back to the parking, a gentleman who I often see exercising his dog there was coming back to his car, and we discussed our recent wildlife sightings at the pond for a few moments. He drove off, and I got in the car and headed out on the dirt track toward the main road. The windows were wide open and I was enjoying our first day with a hint of fall in the air. I felt something on my bare leg, and glanced down, still driving, and saw a huge yellow and black spider climbing rapidly up my leg. It was big, with a body the size of a quarter and a leg-span 4 times that. My mind went: “WooO!!! Spider!! Big spider! Bright yellow and black! Garden Spider. Harmless.” in the fraction of a second it took me to scoop it into my palm and attempt to toss it out the window. I will admit there was a micro-second of caught breath panic at the “WooO” but “Harmless” pretty much coincided with its reaching the open window. The car was still moving forward of course, and the wind was blowing in the open window and through the car, so I immediately suspected that the spider had not really gotten out the window. I stopped and looked out, but the dirt track was empty. Yes, well, even though I knew it was harmless, I did not want to drive out on to the highway with it in the car. A startle at 50 mph is different than a startle at 10, and I knew I would be distracted just thinking about that spider somewhere in the car. Besides, by this time I wanted a picture of it. I remembered it, from my glimpse, as being particularly bright even of its kind. I opened both front and back doors, and began a search of the interior. It was there, under the front seat, attempting, without much success, to climb the smooth plastic of the center console. I snapped a couple of pics before thinking about how to get it out. I was able, eventually, to use a folded dollar bill from the toll stash to maneuver the spider onto a red plastic ice scraper I found under seat. It did not stay on the scraper of course, but it hung from a tread of web silk long enough for me to transfer it to a birch sapling by the side of track. I even thought ahead and crossed to the far side of the track to hang it in better light for photography 🙂 Of course, it immediately sought the shade of the back side of the leaves. I figured for sure it would be well hidden by the time I got my camera from the car, but it was still there, perhaps still recovering from its trauma, when I got back. It took some doing, and an angled LCD to get an angle in behind the leaves, but I did manage a few good shots of the spider. It was indeed, one of the brightest, and one of the biggest, Garden Spiders I have ever seen.
The Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) should really have a more exotic name. It is certainly exotic looking. Big. Bright. Boldly patterned. With orange legs! If it were not so common, and if it did not live, generally, right in our gardens and yards, it probably would have a more fitting name. It certainly would if it were not pretty much harmless to humans. It will, under extreme provocation, bite, and it does use toxins to kill its prey, but we do not react to its poison. It is a good thing to remember when you find one climbing your leg while you are driving the car. 🙂 I can not really figure out how it got in the car. The windows were closed while the car was parked, and I certainly did not feel it on me while talking the gentleman with the dog. He certainly did not comment on it. Seems like he would have said something if he had seen it crawling on me. I might have brushed it off a bush with my camera bag, or it could have been hanging off my hat. I am not sure. Despite my micro-second of panic when I first saw it, I am delighted to have had the encounter…it makes a good story…and blessed to have had the opportunity to photograph this beautiful spider. I am especially happy that no harm came to the spider through the adventure.
I know, there are some of you who do not like spiders, and I respect and understand your fear. I am sure just looking at the pic gives you shivers, and reading the story, if you got this far, probably sets your heart racing. Not your fault. While I will admit to having a healthy respect for spiders, and an awareness of the harm some of them might do, I don’t have the impulse to smash them, and I can appreciate their beauty. Especially a magnificent specimen like this one. On the other hand, I am certainly not going to provoke it into biting me. 🙂
“If your eye is generous, then your whole being is filled with light.” Jesus said it, and it is the key. Open eyes, and a spirit that sees the light in all that lives, in very shape of the landscape, in everything that the light touches. The light within shines out of open eyes to illuminate a beautiful world, full of meaning, full of grace…worthy of love. Just as the creator loves it into being. Seeing it so, generously, makes it so. Even one spider at a time. And I thank you, Jesus, for relighting the light in me! Happy Sunday!
Orb Weaver on the Kennebunk Plains. Happy Sunday!
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I got to the Kennebunk Plains and Day Brook Pond early enough this week to catch the dew on the spiderwebs, and there were some spectacular webs. 🙂 The angle of the sun was just right to light them up. After photographing this particular web for effect, I noticed that it, unlike most of the others, was still inhabited, so I took a little detour off the path for a closer look. It is clearly some kind of Orb Weaver, but I can’t pin it down more than that. This is, to me, a very satisfying image…I love the light caught in the droplets on the web, the detail and color of the spider, and the out-of-focus landscape in the background making a horizon.
Sony HX400V at about 68mm equivalent field of view. Macro. ISO 80 @ 1/1600th @ f3.5. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: I know many people have a thing about bugs, and spiders in particular. It is perhaps (as I am pretty sure has been suggested many times by better men than I) a residual fear based on the fact that some of them can hurt us, and a very few of them can kill us. Same with snakes. It seems to be more a female thing…perhaps maternal, as in protecting the helpless infants and hapless kids from all that might harm them. If it is not instinctive in males, it can certainly be learned. To really see a spider we have to sidestep that fear if it is still in us. Then too, spiders break the leg rule. They have too many legs, too many limbs. Everything we love has 4 limbs. Spiders have two extra. What’s up with that? Creepy.
On the other hand, who does not love a spider web jeweled with dew? Logic tells us that a web needs a spider, but we are not always logical…we are rarely logical when it comes to what we like and dislike, and almost never logical in what we fear.
On the other hand, the spirit compels us to view all that lives as beautiful, because it was created by a loving God, the same God that created us. The web of life should be as appealing as a spider web jeweled with dew in the morning sun, and each creature a drop on the web, refracting the pure light of creation in its own unique way. The spider has its beauty if we are willing to look closely enough. If we are willing to know spiders.
And of course, one of the things we learn to know is that a few of them can, if we do not give them their space, hurt us. We know who they are and learn to respect them, and, unless one ends up in your sleeping bag, as a Brown Recluse did in mine on a trip to Arizona, they will not bother us. The scar on my leg is a good reminder to check my sleeping bag before getting in. We learn to give all spiders, all creatures, the space they need to live. Not simply because they might be dangerous, but because they are, each one in its own way, lovely…created with love.
Happy Sunday!
The spider and the dragon
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When I went out yesterday to mow the front yard, there were a dozen or more tiny, late-season, dark-legged, off-colored Meadowhawks flying low and perching often. Most likely they were female or immature male White-faced Meadowhawks, but I can not be at all certain. As I was photographing this one close in under the eves of the house, it flew up and right into a spider web. I considered freeing it, but then the spider, which had been hiding under the lower edge of the siding on the house, scuttled out and attacked. So be it. Spiders got to do what spiders got to do. And I am almost as fond of spiders as I am of dragonflies. I think this is just one of the grass spiders…a funnel weaver of some kind, though the web seemed sticky enough at least to trap the dragon…or else its legs just got so well tangled that despite best efforts it could not free itself. An hour later the spider had worked the dragon almost completely up under the siding on the house. For scale here, the dragonfly is maybe an inch and a quarter long (3 cm) and I was shooting from about that same distance.
Sony HX400V. 68mm equivalent field of view, macro. ISO 200 @ 1/80th @ f3.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Flower Crab Spider on Blazing Star
When I checked the Blazing Star bloom after getting back form a week in Tucson, it was looking well past prime. There were still flowers in bloom, but they were smaller, and somehow drier, than the week before. I was on my way back to the scooter when this well posed Flower Crab Spider caught my eye. I might not have seen it but I was pretty much checking every remaining bloom for Clearwing Moths, since I had a fleeting glimpse of one taking nectar at a flower just before heading back. Serendipity! I am still amazed by this particular color contrast.
I love just being able to zoom in for a macro like this with the Sony HX400V. At 80mm or so you can get to less than 5cm. As it was I only got the one shot before the spider scuttled down over the shady side of the blossom. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Deadly Embrace: Spider and the fly.
Flower Crab Spider with Deer Fly
This is a Flower Crab Spider with what appears to be some kind of Deer Fly. The Flower Crab Spider sits on white or yellow flowers (it is white on a white flower, but slowly turns more yellow on yellow flowers) and waits for other insects to visit. Then it pounces. Here it is on Yarrow. I very nearly walked right by this little drama along side the Kennebunk Bridle Path. In fact I am not sure what caught my eye. I took a few shots with the 75-300mm zoom and then switched to the Sony NEX 5T and ZEISS Touit 50mm f2.8 macro. The spider is less than 1/4 inch long.
ISO 100 @ 1/640th @ f9. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Arrow-shaped Micrathena. Happy Sunday!
Here’s odd. I saw my first picture of a spiny Micrathene spider some time last week, most likely in a #spidersunday post on Google+. Strange creature! That is what I thought, along with “never seen the like.”
So I go out Thursday this week, between thunder storms, to photograph rain droplets on the leaves in the yard, and what should I find building a web in the Rhododendron, but this strange and wonderful creature. At least I had been prepared 🙂
Come back inside to process the pics, and find that someone has just posted a series of spider images on Facebook, among them two different spined Micrathene. There’s odd. That’s what I thought.
This particular Micrathene is the Arrow-shaped. Micrethenes are orb weavers, but this is not the Arrow-headed Orb Weaver. That is a different spider, though I have seen this one listed as Arrow-headed Micrathene as well. Odder.
The only speculation I have found as to what the spikes are for is that they might make the spiders harder to swallow for any interested predators. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the new Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday Thought. It is exactly this kind of odd in nature which reinforces my belief in an intelligence and personality in the universe. In God. It is, as I see it, much easier to believe that this creature, with its elaborate miniaturized structure and its exotic coloration, was designed…than it is to believe it just happened by any sequence of random events, no matter how long you give chance to work. Of course if Spinny Micrathene spiders were the only evidence I had, I might be able to avoid believing in God…but it is all part of an all encompassing reality that is being proved moment to moment in my life. An Arrow-shaped Micrathene in the Rhododendron on a rainy day, after spiny spiders on Google+ and just before spiny spiders on Facebook is just part of the ongoing proof…exactly what I have to come to expect of the slightly whimsical (from my point of view) love of the creator God.
Spider in the sun, weaving rainbows. Happy Sunday!
My workshop yesterday was at the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle, which is adjacent to the Union Bay Natural Area. The whole area used to be a city dump…but the city and the University of Washington Botanical Gardens reclaimed the land and turned it into wonderful little chunk of nature along the shores of Lake Washington. It is a great spot for bird watching, walking your dog, jogging, etc. Between the Horticulture Center and the lake is Yesler Swamp, which is also being developed. There are temporary trails leading down on the east and west to the lagoon off Lake Washington and plans to build a boardwalk over the wetter swamp and the lagoon to complete the loop.
This spider, which I have not had time to id, was one of several who had constructed very large webs along the east trail. The angle of the morning sun was just right so that the web diffracted the light and created a “rainbow” effect (minus the rain…I suppose it is more accurate to say the web diffracted the light into is spectrum 🙂 Whatever…the effect was quite striking.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought. Almost everyone knows that what we call white light is really made up all the colors in the spectrum…reds and blues and greens and violets. We see it most often in a rainbow; occasionally cast on a wall by prism hanging in a window; more rarely, early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is low, across the face of street sign painted with luminous reflective paint full of glass beads; and very rarely indeed in something natural like this spider web hanging in the sun. Still, often enough so when we stop to think about it, we know white light is, miraculously, all the colors combined.
But we don’t often stop to think about it. We take white light for granted. We forget that red things are red because they reflect the red light within the white…and green things are green because they reflect the green. As a photographer, ie, one who plays with light all the time, I am a bit more aware, but not so much that I can’t be taken by surprise by a spider web in the sun.
I have said before that love is the light of eternity…of, if you will, the realm of the spirit. Many who encounter God come away with impression of the pure white light…again, remembering that that light is love. And yet, since what we experience in the physical realm of time and space is a physical manifestation of the eternal, the love/light of the spirit has to be made up of all the colors of the rainbow, or we would not see all the colors of eternity. There must be a red love/light and a green love/light within the white love/light of God’s presence. Each of us, each of our lives, must reflect back our particular color. Certainly that would explain a lot about the variety of love we see in human beings.
Rarely, there might be a life, or even a second of a life, that is so lived as to show all the colors of God’s love. It might be some instant as fragile as a spider web in the morning sun beside a trail in a swamp in Seattle…but it would be a moment to treasure, a life to treasure and to celebrate. Or that’s what I think.