Not an Alien Facehugger.

The crab spider on our Sunflower has grown pretty big and fat. The diet of bees apparently suits it well (I have seen it to eat another unfortunate bee).

I think this picture shows how the spider manages to subdue much bigger prey without falling off the plant with it during the struggle, although I have not had the luck to see it in “action”. You can see that the spider has built a small web and has thus essentially tethered itself with spider silk to the plant. Ingenious.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The Daily Bird #780

We’ve been neglecting the Daily Bird, which is a thing that cannot be.

So here’s a gorgeous Sardinian Warbler for you.

The funny thing about shooting with the 600mm lense is that I sometimes don’t even know what I’m shooting and only find out at home when I look at the pics on the computer screen.

Small bird sitting on a fence

Sardinian Warbler
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Fleckchen

As you may remember, our lovely bunny Pünktchen died some weeks ago, and of course, the first thing my dad did when he returned from their holiday was to take the little one to the breeder to get a new one. The guy breeds bunnies for shows, so those who don’t fit his breeding needs are sold as pets, which shows again that those things are stupid as the new bunny is the cutest.

So here’s the first pics of the new family member. Let’s start with Molli, being very hot and not suspecting that life would change again.

 

Brown rabbit dozing in the shade

Effin’ heat wave when you’re wearing a fur coat.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

And here he is, Fleckchen.

Brown and white bunny

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Face of brown and white bunny

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Face of brown and white bunny

Isn’t he pretty?
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Translating his name got me thinking again. Now, first of all, in German we make things small by adding -chen, which doesn’t always work in English. While you get a baby and a kitty, you don’t have a “cary”, meaning a little toy car. Now, the former bunny was “Pünktchen”. A “Punkt” can be a dot, but also a spot, which would be the more usual term for describing an animal’s coat. A “Fleck” is something like a larger dot. It can be a spill on your clothing, but also the colouring of an animal, so now I have two rabbits named for their coat and they could both be translated as the same word in English. So I went with “Patches” because his coat looks more like a patchwork blanket.

Brown and brown and white rabbit, separated through a fence

Molli and Fleckchen
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Here you can see the first contact between the two, with Fleckchen being in his temporary enclosure, from which he escaped the next day. Thankfully he#s still too young for making baby rabbits.

Sunny Spider

As I was walking around the sunflower yesterday evening, making some pictures before the sun sets, I noticed a strangely positioned bee. When I looked closer, I realized that it is strangely positioned because it is dead and being held by a bright yellow crab spider. You can see it in the yesterday picture, if you look close enough.

So of course I had to go for a macro lens (the one I have built) and make a few close-up pictures. I tried my hand even at filming the fellow and it did not turn out all that bad considering that I do not have monopod (but I should buy one).

I have no idea what those little flies are doing there. Maybe they are insect equivalents of vultures? That spider must be strong and have quick venom to subdue a bee twice its size quick enough to keep a hold on it.

Video is bellow the fold.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

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Barcelona: The City 2: La Plaza Catalunya

The centre of Barcelona is the Plaza Catalunya. Lined on one side by the traditional Corte Inglés shopping centre and start of the Rambla, the main boulevard, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell you’ll miss it. Most tourist buses start and stop there (our shuttle bus from the camp site dropped us off there and picked us up, and so did most others), the hop on- hop off buses stop there, the metro lines do, the regional train station is under it.

Above it are the pigeons.

Water fountain by night, brightly lit.

The fountain by night.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

Water fountain in daylight.

The fountain by day.
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Pigeon bathing in a water fountain.

Did I say fountain? What I meant was “pigeon bath”.
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Pigeons in a tree.

How many pigeons can you count?
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