I spotted this barn spider (Neoscona crucifera) hanging in the air about the same time she sensed my presence. She scampered up her web as I moved in a little closer. Eventually she climbed back down and I managed to get these shots of her in motion.
Initially I couldn’t figure out why she was hurrying down the strands of her web. When she stopped, however, I could see that she was anxious to finish off the snack that she had wrapped up earlier.
Although these shots may look like they were taken with a macro lens, they were actually taken at 600mm on my Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens. I ended up focusing manually on the spider, because my camera kept wanting to focus on the background, which was a good distance away. Additionally, I used my pop-up flash on at least some of these images to bring out some of the details of the spider.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 