Spiders Around the House

I found these spiders in or around my house in the last two years.

A jumping spider (focus stack of 3 images)

 

Triangulate combfoot (or cobweb) spider (focus stack of 7 images)

There was spider drama the other day. Unfortunately, my photos are crap and the video is hard to watch. Anyway, here goes. 

I spotted this web just outside the garage. A spider, visible as a tiny blob to the left of the rightmost plant stalk, was hanging from a support strand. I thought, "That's a big web for such a small spider to make." It didn't.

An hour later there were two additional, larger spiders. Well, one was present the whole time, right there in the center of the web. The Seek app identified it as a conical trashline orbweaver. These spiders decorate their webs with lines of prey parts, plant debris, and whatnot, and then they hang out at the center, looking like part of the trash. The third spider was on one of the support strands and seemed to pluck at it.

The tiny one, the web mistress, and the plucker

Every so often, the spider in the center would go to this third spider and fight or mate or something. With the excuse that wind is the bane of macrophotography, here's the plucker in action:

 

Running crab spider (focus stack of 3 images)

American green crab spider (focus stack of 6 images). It's on a bedsheet hanging on a clothesline.

A jumping spider (focus stack of 3 images)

Bug Photobombs

When I look at macro shots on my computer monitor I sometimes find bugs I didn't know were there.

Here I was shooting spent lovage flowers.

Columbus August 22

These pictures and those of the masked weaver are from the Columbus Zoo August 22.

African leopard

carpenter bee

koala

red-footed tortoise

female Abyssinian (northern) ground hornbill

 female northern (Abyssinian) ground hornbill

Spider Webs

These pictures are crummy, but I find spider webs interesting.

The first two are from 2008 using a Kodak camera I thought was pretty good at the time. A spider had made a web between a computer and a chair. I tried to put black paper under the web as a background, but that didn't work.

This one is interesting because of what happened. The web was hung between a tree and a tall plant next to the front porch. As I was still messing around, the owner came along and cut the web down.

This web was at the Columbus Zoo, woven between two trees. I saw it only because another zoo visitor was looking at it.