Seek And Ye Shall Find.

I had just enough goldenrod blooming in the yard (or rather, growing up between the bricks of my front path, of all places) that I knew there should be a crab spider in there somewhere, not counting the itty bitty one I put there after rescuing it from my beverage cup.

See? Told you.

Another way to find (typically crab) spiders in blossoms is to look for nectaring insects that aren't moving.

 Hmmm, this looks suspicious.

Hah! Quite likely the same crab spider as above, late afternoon instead of early morning. Good girl…

This looks like the wee one I found on my beverage cup and put in the goldenrod the week before. With lunch. Hooray!

And sometimes you find surprising things when you aren't looking… Had the truck washed and serviced and when I was re-stashing all the miscellaneous stuff I feel necessary to tote about in it, I found this poor thing wrapped up in one of the cargo blankets:

She was very pale (even for a crab spider) and moving slowly but she was still moving (*phew*), and seemed very grateful to be placed in a goldenrod flower-spray when I was done fiddling with her. 

Later that evening… *&%$ warblers. I think a redstart ate all my spiders!!!


Alas, this might be the last of my spider photos for the year. *sigh* Still have some beautiful butterflies to share with you, though!

Pretties and The Predator.

Guess which one this is?

Seriously cool critter variously known as wheel bug (for obvious reasons--look at its back in the above photo), assassin bug, ambush bug. Pick one; they pretty much cover the basics of this beastie, here lunching on a small bumble bee.

The butterflies (hairstreak, buckeye) seemed completely unconcerned sharing the asters with it. Guess they knew it was otherwise occupied.

But it might be worth keeping an eye on nonetheless...

All's Fair...

In love and war, even (especially?) when it involves crossing the line between the plant and animal kingdoms.

The obedient plant (a native mint whose flowers, when you push them aside, don't return to their original position--hence the name) really makes the bees work for their reward. No better way to guarantee that the plants get pollinated, though… 

Same species, different lighting and exposure made the colors different.

Itty Bitty Butterfly.

Really tame red-banded hairstreak. Maybe she was so calm because she was so full of eggs and couldn't move any faster...?

She's washing. Her. Face. ::aaahhhhhh....thump::

Did she or didn't she?

For obvious reasons, called a conehead katydid. (Not, in fact, the ones that call katy-did, katy-didn't. But pretty neat beastie anyway.)

Female, also for obvious reason: that's not a tail, it's an ovipositor. Eek…

Black Beauty.

Oh, yeah. That's exactly what you think it is.

I was so excited over finding my second black widow that I didn't even think to take her picture before moving her away from the nature center's front door (and safely relocating her to a big log in the woods well away from the building)--she was hanging out with an orb weaver who had staked claim to that particular wall the week before. Most unusual in that the widow was out in the open and that two large predators were less than three inches apart and leaving each other alone.

Shiny black, distinct shape (doesn't get more Halloween-y than that, eh?) and, of course, the hourglass. (I'm told we have two species here, Northern and Southern Black Widow. Southern's hourglass is typically one marking, Northern is made up of two separate triangles. This one sort of hits middle ground. I don't care: it's a black widow.)

Hooded Warbler.

A number of the previous warbler photos were lightly tweaked for sharpness and exposure (I was shooting with slightly-above-basic equipment, and am thrilled with what I did manage to capture) but sometimes it takes a filter (here, Photoshop's "Watercolor") to save a photo that doesn't quite make the grade on its own no matter how much you twiddle... Adult male Hooded Warblers really do look like this; the filter simply changed the texture of the photo.

You say "PAR-ooh-la"…

I say "pah-ROO-la"!

You say "wahb-ler", I say "WAR-bler"…

Oh, let's call the whole thing off.

[Northern Parula. Sept. 16, 2011, Cape May Point, New Jersey.]

Black and White Warbler.

Not typical behavior for a black and white--they like to run up and down tree trunks and branches in their search for bugs to eat--but the warblers were bouncing around everywhere after a cold front brought them to Cape May in mid-September.

Black-throated Green Warbler.

A young one, neither black-throated (not quite yet, anyway, but you can see it coming in) nor exactly green.

Cape May Point, New Jersery, September 16, 2011.