Orange spider

I took a lot of shots today at the grove, kinda made up for yesterday's early rain off. The sun managed to poke through the clouds occasionally, so the light was good. I shot five types of hopper, a ladybird, a yellow bug, a couple of lizards, butterfly and this spider. The lizard shots were disappointing and went in the bin. The butterfly was the female featured end on three days ago, it was a good image, as were some of the hopper shots, but this is the best shot that I have taken of this spider, so he gets the lime light today.

I made it my mission to find the green hoppers mouth, from two days ago. I spent a good deal of time laying on my belly, studying this hopper through my lens and finally cracked it. The mouth is actually at the bottom of his neck, weird. I just quickly went through my hopper file and counted fifteen different types. This includes grass hoppers and crickets.

I have collected a lot of ladybird images, but they are so small and haven't come close to making blip. So far I have five different varieties photographed, including and all red, all black with red eyes (cute) and three patterns of spots.

What has surprised me is the lack of spider blip opportunities. There are lots of very small and colorful spiders, but my camera is just not capable of doing them justice. This orange colored spider seems to be about the most common, at about half an inch across as it stands, maybe a little more. It is a jumping spider and extremely fast. It kept hiding under the leaf, so I had to chase it back with my finger.

A late post today, the lab work was interrupted twice with power cuts and once while I was typing this. Now it is raining heavily and I have to wait before hitting the internet café.

Dave