It rained last night, but the sunrise was spectacular.
I was somewhat skeptical that there would be any Nephila, Argyrodes or Argiope. Each morning when I walk to my spider place, I pass this interesting arrangment of hanging things. On Saturday's guys come and hang their song birds - a sort of local community center for song birds
A perfect father-son morning
Placing a bird cage
Then I pass the food court - later I'll stop for lunch and a lime juice
So off I went, about 9am - and stopped at my Argiope web. No Argiope - sigh and I was about to walk away when I looked up a bit and there she was, a beautiful female Nephila
and her breakfast, nicely wrapped in her silk
and my setup
There was a small fly on my camera - nice practice shot
Here she is placing her breakfast into the eating position. In addition, there are a few Argyrodes our kleptoparasites, looking for something yummy. So I set up and watched and took 2 GB of photos.
And mom eating away at her breakfast
Closer
Later, she finished her breakfast. You can see a lonely Argyrodes to the right. This provides another example of size scale
I decided to walk around a bit - and found another Nephila pilipes. The leg color, though, is orange - with a black body - and for me, quite unusual
Orange colored legs - color morph of Nephila pilipes. I've not seen this morph before. Here I'm looking up because the web is quite high
Her web was about 4 metre above the ground
Looking into the sky
Then back to my first find
From the side
Here are a pair of Argyrodes
And a single Argyrodes doing what they like to do
Just taking a walk
More walking
Harvvesting
Here you can see the female palpi
As she grasps a strand of web
And positions it
Here she appears to be eating something
Here, she appears to be chasing an insect that is stuck in the Nephila web
Here I thought she was stealing it
And here, preparing to eat it
But she kept moving beyond
Another insect caught in the web
Here she is playing with a fly
and releases it
then later grabs it again
and manipulates it
Here she is at her acrobatic best
And a reflection of the sky
C. Frank Starmer