This is the last in this Itsy Bitsy Spider week, that has gone on for almost two weeks. That does not mean however that spider contributions are not welcome anymore. Should you come across some pretty specimen, definitively take a picture to share.
Today’s picture is from rq: Just a lean, mean, bug-eating machine hanging out.
Picture is bellow the fold.
Who knows what horrors lie in patio stairs? Or maybe it this the real Cirith Ungol pass?
@rq, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Content warning- spiders. Below the fold.
Exterior of the cave, the stone wall of the patio stairs.
More beautiful pictures from Nighjar. Do not be deceived by those fuzzy-wuzzy cute little faces.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Moth Tyta luctuosa on the platform and during takeoff. Gotta love those engines blasting!
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Today’s Monday Mercurial is a Carpenter Bee, who are rare and amazing creatures. This is the only thime I saw one and had a camera at hand. They are quite big, easily the size of my thumb and can give you quite a start when soaring past you when you don’t expect them.
©Giliell, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
©Giliell, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
©Giliell, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Today’s Friday Feathers are some of my holiday pics.
i need tore4start the Barcelona series, but for now there’s a young Mediterranean seagull. I love how the juveniles look completely different from the adults
©Giliell
More perfect shots from Nightjar, this time Hummingbird Hawk Moth Macroglossum stellatarum.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
It reminded me of a fun anecdote – during my studies at uni, one of my half-classmates mentioned one evening in the pub that he has observed a beautiful hummingbird in his garden. Pedantic killjoy as I am, I have pointed out that there are no hummingbirds in Europe, so what he has in fact observed was in this moth.
It was mildly embarrassing moment, because he was his half-classmateship was the biology half (me studying Biology-Chemistry, him studying Biology-IT). But there was no real reason for him to be embarassed. Nobody has perfect knowledge about everything and their similarity to hummingbirds in flight is really uncanny.
I have seen these beautiful moths occasionaly in my garden, but never when I had camera in hand.
There will be more spiders from you! In the meantime, I think this green spider looked lovely when it waved at me from our plum. The way it was running around on that leaf it looked like some sort of dance routine.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Shake it to the left…
Shake it to the right…
Oh, didn’t see ya there. Hi!
Since we’re apparently running spider week, here are mine. I took the pics last year at my parents’ place.
The pics are shot with the magnifying lens and each spider baby is about the size the head of a pin.
©Giliell
©Giliell
©Giliell
More butterfly pictures. I am envious of the scarce swallowtail. I have never seen one of those live. What a sight.
© Nightjar, click for full size.
Enjoy!
Iphiclides podalirius
Vanessa atalanta
Vanessa cardui
This week’s Wednesday Wings come from avalus, who writes:
Usually I can not take pictures of birds with my cellphone cam due to the lack of good zoom. But last week a friend and I helped this little fellow to escape the architectural nightmare and birdkiller, that is the our chemistry departent building. It is made of lots of glass and with windows in odd places and every so often we find birds that have flown in but could not escape again and died. This one was already pretty exhausted, as I doubt we could have caught it with the box otherwise. It did not put up any resistance.
This story had a happy end, we released the little one a minute or so after taking this picture: We took away the cardboardpane we used to cover the box, the little one looked at us puzzeled, left droppings in the box and flew away.
I do have no idea what kind of bird this is.
©avalus
I think it’s a juvenile Redstart that got caught in the lab.
Nightjar has sent some exquisite butterfly pictures. I love the first one. The contrast between the blue butterfly and pink blossom is just amazing, and the focus is simply perfect.
© Nightjar, click for full size.
Enjoy!
Celastrina argiolus.
Colias sp.
Vanessa cardui
Today’s Monday Mercurial is Fleckchen, who has grown quite a lot and is quickly learning all of Molli’s bad habits.
Here #1 is trying to make him climb the slide, because maybe he’d enjoy a good ride as well?
“What is this?”
©Giliell
“NomNomNom”
©Giliell