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Posts Tagged ‘arachnid’

February spider

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, Winter, tagged , , , , , on February 22, 2014| 6 Comments »

I was a little surprised yesterday when a small spider crossed my path when I was walking on the boardwalk at my local marsh. Sure, temperatures had warmed up and it was over 50 degrees outside (10 degrees C), but I didn’t think there were any spiders around at this time of the year. This is definitely my first spider of 2014.

Expecting to photograph birds, not bugs (yes, I know a spider technically is an arachnid, not a bug), I had equipped my camera with a telephoto lens, not a macro lens, and wasn’t even carrying my macro lens. The spider was moving too, so I used what I had and shot these photos at 300mm and cropped them.

You can probably tell that the boardwalk at the marsh is made of a synthetic material and not real wood, which means that I am not at risk of getting splinters when I kneel on it as I often do.  This spider, whose species I cannot identify, was pretty small. The visible head of a screw used to hold in place the planks of boardwalk help to give you an idea of the relative size of the spider.  Eagle-eyed readers may notice that the third photo is the same image as the first one, but cropped less severely.

In a few short months, I hope to see (and photograph) a whole lot more spiders in even greater detail, but the first one of the year is always special.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Eyes of a harvestman

Posted in Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2012| 8 Comments »

What’s a harvestman?

a. A man who harvests. like a farmer or a migrant worker;

b. A pocket electronic device made by International Harvester (like a Walkman or Discman);

c. An insect related to a spider; or

d. Spiderman’s adversary in the new Spiderman movie

Until earlier this week I might have responded with selection  “a” if  I had been posed this question—it is the most obvious answer. I would have been wrong. The correct answer is “c.”

As I was finishing up a photo shoot in a local garden one of my friends excitedly pointed to a bush and exclaimed, “There’s your first harvestman.” I did not have a clue what she was talking about. All I could really see in the bush was a bunch of long legs connected to a body. (My friend Cindy D. has some photos of the entire body of a harvestman in one of her blog postings in case you are not familiar with this insect.)

I shot some photos anyways and when I looked at them on my computer I was shocked. There appeared to be two eyes on a stalk in the middle of the insect’s back, with the eyes looking sidewards in completely opposite directions. Could they really be eyes?

Here is one of my photos of the harvestman. It is not a technically perfect photo but it gives you a pretty clear view of the unusual eyes of this strange insect.  If you want to learn more, check out this page, which is full of fascination factoids and photos.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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