Wednesday, January 05, 2011

an omission rectified

While she didn't exactly take me to task, my darling girl did express some surprise that I hadn't shared photos of these recent interesting garden visitors:

this moth was about 7.5 cm or 3" long, and presumably asleep clinging to the flyscreen.

I didn't manage to catch him awake but you can still see his beautiful barred wings

and this impressive mantis/stick insect thingy got him/her self trapped in my bug zapper, but managed to escape before I had to do something drastic like dismantle the thing to free it.

He/she was quite happy to hop a ride on my hand to the slightly more salubrious surroundings of a eucalypt and stayed there long enough for a photo session.

and The Girl herself took this last pic of one of my occasional guests ...

this totally weird, spiky, little spider, the Spiny Spider, Austracantha minax.

Despite numerous attempts, I've never quite managed to catch her in focus, even in macro, probably because she's really tiny ... about a centimetre across.

If you're wondering why I'm calling it 'she' with such conviction, the males are even smaller.

Anyway, Nadie had a go at taking the shot from a bit further out and I just cropped in closer.
Success!

5 comments:

Ceaberrys Haberdashery said...

just to let you know your mantis is a female ;) I used to raise them. But lovely pictures.

Doris Sturm said...

These are awesome photos - I love looking at these critters close-up without actually having to be there in person LOL

gayle said...

Those are some amazing critters! I'd love to see that moth with wings spread.

Anonymous said...

Lovely pics!

Now - this is slightly irregular, but I can't find your email address after my last computer crash (arrgh!) but would you like some vintage knitting patterns? Might be crochet as well. They belonged to my Nana, and while they stayed high and dry when the shed/studio flooded, I'm doing a BIG reassess of what I keep.

Do feel free to say no, but if you're at all interested I can pop them in the post. (Probably about a 2 inch tall stack so far...)

catsmum said...

oh yes please Caity
do you still have my addy ?