Web Sites and Spiders

It's Tuesdays and my web site is updated with the names of last weeks 152 species of wild flowers found in the Hamilton, Ontario area. There are also 5 new wild flower photos to look at and a few others on the Past Photos sections if you missed them or want to look again.

Meanwhile, Fleur-Ange and I are finding spiders in the meadows around our house.



This one, we think, is a Flower Crab Spider. If so, it can actually change colours to help match the flower it is on in a matter of a day or two according to what we read. (Of course I can't remember where I read it now. It was yesterday. Sigh!) Fleur-Ange found the spider on a Motherwort plant.



This second spider, I found in a Red Pine tree. It was fairly small.



OK, it was really small. I just accidently found it while looking for new pine cones. Here is a magnified look:



It appears to be in the "Sheet-web Weaver" family of spiders with about 2 200 other species in its family. If any one knows the species name of either spider, please pass it on. I've looked in various places, books and web sites, and have not had the time or patience to sort them out. (Oh the joys of dial up connections....)

Syrphid Fly

We looked through several books before deciding that this insect was a Syrphid Fly. It was spending time on Mullein flowers. These are three of the best shots that Fleur-Ange managed to capture. I just did some creative cropping of the photos.



Yes, Syrphid Flies look a bit like bees.



These photos make the fly look large, but they are about 1 cm, or less, from wing tip to wing tip (may 1/3 inch?).

Neighbours

Are these new digital cameras incredible or what? On our walk this afternoon, we found this Meadowhawk (genus Sympertrum) neighbour and got a fairly close photo.



[According to Stokes Beginner's Guide to Dragonflies, red meadowhawks are very difficult to sort out in the field according to species.]

A few minutes later, we noticed one of our Homo sapiens neighbours, two fields over, at work with his hay baler. Fleur-Ange managed to get these photos of the hay being baled and thrown into the wagon behind. [I remember a different method from when I worked on the farm as a teen.]



Nowadays most farms that I see along the road make large round bales that it takes a tractor to move. It was nice to see some older technology at work making bales that can be handled by hand. I am sure the neighbours horses will enjoy these during the winter. Meanwhile, have a closer look at this machine throwing bales.

Grape Knots

This blog is the result of collaboration between Fleur-Ange and I. She took an initial photo of part of a grape vine which impressed me. I asked for more and pointed out various "knots" that I liked and then took the photos to the computer to play. The results follow.

Just a plain knot:



A knot with a bit of extra:



My first attempt at combining three images:



My second attempt at combining. This time there are six layers:

Assassin Bug

Yesterday, when I came inside to check the ID of the butterfly and bug on the Daisy, I saw a picture of the Assassin Bug in my insect book. I wanted to try to get one more photo of the Ambush Bug and went outside to see if it was still there. It was not, but on a Common Milkweed nearby there was an Assassin Bug.



I managed to get a couple of photos with this one that I thought was good enough to put up on the web. In the process, the bug crawled on my camera, on me, and on various places on the milkweed. So, only this morning did I read that the bug can "inflict a very painful bite." Oops!