Insects...

[Greg Beetham]

Ha good one John under the circumstances, yeah I agree with you Yildiz, no matter where you put yourself, left, right, up, down, the 'eyes' the praying mantis' have seem too follow you.
Greg

[Dusty]

Here's a shot of a spider under our front porch swing, feeding on a cricket. My wife shot this one on Saturday.

Noreens Spider1.jpg

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Dusty

[Greg Beetham]

As far as spiders go that one doesn't look too dangerous Dusty, for us at least, but ol' Jiminy isn't so lucky.
I had a lot of trouble with this guy, a giant grasshopper, he kept moving around to the other side of a branch and into dense leaves etc. and I can probably guess why, there is a bird that spends most of it's time looking for this particular variety.
Greg

A700 KM28-75 F56

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[Dr. Harout]

Greg, your shot is not showing.

[Greg Beetham]

Yep I know Doc I'm not sure what's wrong I didn't do anything different too any other time, but one thing is funny if I try and do a review before posting I get dumped back to the logon page, and if I just go ahead and post it there's no image so I don't know, I just had too re-install windows recently so it might be some sort of security setting that's different now....but what? you can't give Photoclubalpha a 'trusted site' status with windows security because it doesn't have https: the s is for secure server, but apart from that who knows?
Greg

[aster]

As far as spiders go that one doesn't look too dangerous Dusty, for us at least, but ol' Jiminy isn't so lucky.
I had a lot of trouble with this guy, a giant grasshopper, he kept moving around to the other side of a branch and into dense leaves etc. and I can probably guess why, there is a bird that spends most of it's time looking for this particular variety.
Greg

A700 KM28-75 F56

DSC00551.jpg

No, it doesn't show.

Greg can you try again? I'll try to copy/paste the properties of the the photo in my post if it doesn't show in yours.


Yildiz

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks Yildiz, I had a brainwave, log out and re-start ie and see if that fixes it...it did ha ha.
Greg

[aster]

Hmm, indeed, the little chap is acting a bit shy...

It's a good shot, though. And I like seeing its body language in the act of trying to hide itself from the predator's eyes.


Yildiz

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks Yildiz, personally I don't think it's all that good, but it was very difficult just getting it in the frame and the flash still having a clear line of sight as well, I thought 'a shot' is better than 'no shot'.
Greg

ps. I'ts probably not 'that' big I suppose, only about 4 1/2 maybe 5 inches long.

[Birma]

5 inches long ! Being Australian it is probably poisonous and eats snakes as well

[Greg Beetham]

Ha ha you're funny Birma, Oz is so vast you rarely come across anything dangerous, only when you do, you have too tread very carefully indeed. I saw a toxicity report on snakes once. The Diamondback Rattlesnake for example has enough venom too kill about 1,500 lab mice, (the venom from one bite diluted down too a level just enough to kill a mouse and extrapolated from there by the quantity delivered), the Rattlesnake has grooved fangs so not all the venom is actually delivered anyway. Here there is the Death Adder that can deliver enough in one bite to kill about 7,000 lab mice. The Eastern Brown Snake is rated at around 17,000 mice and the Taipan is around 23,000. The Taipan is actually a very alert snake so you will rarely even see one, it's long gone by the time you arrive where it was at. But the Eastern Brown is another kettle of fish altogether, it's nature is too get a bit agro so you have too watch out for that baby.
That's about it really, like I say you would probably never see one, although come to think of it I did see three black snakes on the side of the road coming back from that fishing trip on the rough dirt road with lots of long grass just a few miles from where the campsite was, don't know what they were and didn't have time to stop for photos etc. anyway I wasn't too keen with all the long grass right beside the vehicle.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

Back on track, a hornet was building a nest on the blade of the mattock (of all places) near the boat so stopped what I was doing and went and grabbed a camera, probably should have taken the time too change the lens over too the macro as these have been zoom cropped a bit.
Greg

A100 KM24-105

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Laying an egg on the unfortunate captive whatever.

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[aster]

Hi Greg,

Poor queen! The nest was probably either displaced by you or destroyed I suppose. Once the nest is removed the queen usually doesn't return to the same spot or look for the nest in its new place though.

I had one that decided to use my kitchen cupboard shelf for a new nest and kept carrying balls of mud to sculpt an unbelievably beautiful home for the eggs. Of course I couldn't let it stay there and had to throw the mud nest out the window to discourage an invasion of hornets at home.

But I was amazed at the way it actually was shaping the chewn mud that looked more like a sculpture than an ordinary massing of mud.

For what kind things do you use the mattock? Is it for loosening soil or for other purposes.

Yildiz

[Greg Beetham]

Hi Yildiz
no I don't use the mattock much but it's THE tool when the Lychee tree in particular (also the umbrella tree) grows yet another root on the surface that everyone trips over. So I think the nest is ok where it is until hatching time, (except for the wet season, it can get very wet there where it is on occasion). Actually I have a lot of time for those hornets, they get the grubs that chew on the plants and flowers etc. so I don't really mind the odd mud nest as long as, like you say, it's not inside somewhere.
I noticed during the day that there was another one of a different type happily building a nest blocking the outlet for the anchor well.
It was flying around my legs where I was standing on a step ladder beside the boat sanding and scraping the fordeck, my presence didn't faze it at all, back and forth it went...that nest might not last unfortunately, we'll see, I think the boat will be back in the water before hatching time on that one.
Greg
A100 KM100Macro

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[aster]

Anchors aweigh, little waspqueen!

You're in Uncle Greg's off-shore ritual's way. Better dislodge that doomed home elsewhere before a disappointing 'sacking' is due! : )

Greg, I think they kind of look for trouble. But this indeed found a rather ready groove of a place that will decrease the amount of labour and material and hence the time to build a safe home for the brood. Rather smart and efficient don't you think? : )) A rather short-lived happy finding though, from the sounds of your schedule...Life's hard for everyone!

Interesting times...You're enjoying an almost-summer and here I'm getting prepared to boil my first winter jam from quince. : )) Pretty hard to peel and cut I must say!


Yildiz