Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning


September 28, 2015: Wet morning macros as jet lag therapy

This guy was just resting on a leaf - and did not notice me.

He noticed me and went to the nearest vine (blackberry)

Fun - Mating stick bugs

Tetragnatha hiding behind a grape leaf

Very heavy dew this morning - note the drops on her legs and abdomen

Upside down Tetragnatha hanging on to her horizontal web

Tetragnatha - good view of her big jaws and fangs and eyes

Leucauge venusta on her horizontal web

A closer view - you can see the some drops of dew make a magnifying glass - notic on her left rear leg

Golden Silk Spider weaving her web at 5am, (Nephila clavipes)

Moon hiding behind clouds

Its about 8am now - more light and here is Nephila clavipes in her golden silk web. Her fiber, I understand, is the strongest natural fiber known - stronger than kevlar

A closer view

I disturbed her web - so now she is rebuilding it. Here you see her extruding silk from her spinnerets

Web weaving requires acrobatic positions

Another view

More weaving and extrusion - the extruded fiber appears not as thick as above

Dorsal view of Nephila clavipes

And more acrobatics

A view of her spinnerets

In different light - you see the yellow color of her silk

A snowy egret as I walk home

She decided to takeoff - note the droplets of water dropping from her feet

In flight

Two sandhill cranes behind my home

sep 28 6409 two cranes

Red head - sort of like Susan's hair - but her's is not the same red :)

sep 28 6433 two cranes

Eye of a sandhill crane

sep 28 6446 red head

Rain finished and she is looking for worms to eat

sep 28 6468 red head hunting

She found a nice worm in the grass - and takes lunch

sep 28 6495 eating worm>

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C. Frank Starmer

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