Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning

This was an amazing morning. The more I looked the less I saw. Finally in desperation, I saw sunlight reflected off a strand of spider silk. Following the strand I found a female Argyrodes flavescens - and at the other end was the male. To the right was an Argiope web. Here is the St. Andrew's Cross spider (Argiope)

Here are her eyes

A snail without her shell

Snail reflections

A curious snail

The male Argyrodes flavescens

Its rare to see Argyrodes dragline silk being extruded from her spinneret

Extruding silk from the other direction and a reflection of me and the sky

An intruder - playing with the silk

Reflections

Nearby was a real surprise. A small egg sack with little spiders and mama hiding under the leaf. She is a lynx, maybe: Oxyopes birmanicus

I spooked her and she dropped down to this limb

Then she shifted positions

Here is one of the little ones

Here is another of the little ones

You can get some idea of the size scale

Meanwhile back with the Argyrodes they were playing the mating game, sort of

More reflections. I so rarely see one large enough to capture the reflections that I took many many exposures

MOre reflections and you can see the glue drops on her dragline silk

Extruding silk

Looking at me

In comes the male (on the right)

A brief encounter

And he leaves while she returns to extruding strands of silk

And I"m trying to get good reflections

The male - lok at how long are his palps

When you spook them, they draw their legs around themselves

And, if I am calm, the unwind their legs and return to extruding silk

ANother view

Attaching, maybe

Extruding

The male - not much depth of field, unfortunately. Shooting at ISO 400, f/8 and 1/125 sec.

Male Argyrodes flavescens

Mama hiding

After my macro shoot I visit the Margaret Drive food court and have lime juice from theses folks

This lady speaks no English and I speak no Mandarin, but we communicate quite well - ordering lime juice and sharing photos

C. Frank Starmer

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