Category: Oddities

This is the season for orb-weaving spiders, one of which laid a great web between a pole and the grass in the front yard. It worked wonderfully well to capture a flying katydid, but wasps got to the victim first:

Maybe a bird took out the spider? We’ll never know, but that katydid won’t go to waste.

This is a dot-for-dot crop from a handheld shot with the Canon SX230HS, macro setting, plus a dash of unsharp mask and gentle contrast stretching to knock the background down. It’s surprisingly hard to get perfect focus on a wind-blown object; this is the least awful of the group.

We have a fine patch of milkweed in the back yard that attracts & nourishes the Monarch butterfly fleet. One of the plants also attracted a dense aphid population:

They’re pretty much featureless orange blobs, although the one on the edge of the leaf at the upper right does show off its legs & antennae:

Where are the ladybugs when you need them?

For some reason known only to them, one of our kitchen windows attracted a congregation of harvestmen for several mornings in a row:

A trio appeared on the end of a honeysuckle tendril that’s making its way up a pillar supporting the roof over the patio:

It certainly appears they’re deep in discussion…

They’re harmless and they’re outside, so we let them be!