Autumn Spiders

 Spiders are one of my favourite macro subjects; they are interesting, colourful and tend not to move around so much.

Dinner Date

Proud mother with babies!

Yes, the blurry dots in the foreground are also tiny spiders.

Only one spider here!  Can you find it?

 It's in the centre of the web where the lines converge.  The collection of past meals, and even it's own discarded exoskeleton serve to camouflage the spider from birds, particularly as it most resembles bird droppings from a distance.

Here's a closer crop of the spider, it's a bit more visible.

Into the small wilds

I took my 105mm macro lens out into the neighborhood, and a nearby rice field.

"Ballerina"

"Upon the Golden Sea"

"Onward"

"Cobalt Oxide Dragon"

Not only predatory invertebrates but a frog too! 

 

And even a hydrangea.

While flies are common, they can be somewhat glamorous.

Macroing about.

Small things around the place.

This will be a Goya, a bit like a cucumber but as bitter and bumpy as can be.

Very hungry caterpillar, with 3 more friends were busily munching on the parsley.  

 Really shouldn't keep the bike outside without a cover.

 In the nearby rice field.

 Pill bug! Not a pill, nor a bug.  It does have some nice blue lines though.

It seems to have the Latin name: Armadillidiidium, which is just perfect.

 Dinner on the beach.  I really like the colours on this spider.

Kermit

Pastoral Autumn

Beautiful morning light in the autumn.

 

Little everyday things.

The late afternoon light illuminated this blossom on the balcony brilliantly.

A few days this week I found myself on the train even earlier than usual and rather than show up to work super early, I took some time to wander about and take some photos in the late morning light.

Not so itsy bitsy spider.  

These spiders are one of the things I like about fall here in Japan.  Not only are they rather large with a 10cm leg span, but their webs can be as large as 2 metres across.

Small things....larger!

It is spring, almost summer, once again in Japan, for this post I decided to take some close ups of the various flying and crawling friends that have awoken with the lengthening days.
I still don't have a lens to get extremely close to my subjects but, with 12 mega pixels, a good sharp image can be cropped to achieve much the same effect.

Click the photos to enlarge.

A fly perched upon a flower petal.

This particular fly does its best to look like a wasp and thus scarier than it deserves!

A rather hairy butterfly sipping nectar concludes the prey section of this post.

Predators!

Any gardener will welcome the Ladybug, destroyer of aphids in their garden.

Waiting,

Got 'im!

Spider dines on a gnat.

A surprisingly large jumping spider (11mm long) investigates a stray piece of cloth in a sink.

And decides the camera was much more interesting!

Bugs II

Japan is also home to a large number of truly enourmous insects, these are some that I photographed near and at the school where I work.

A male stag beetle, prized as pets, can live for 3-4 years. Wild ones such as this can fetch a price of a few thousand yen. Very rare ones go for over 10,000 yen, sometimes even more!

This is a female Rhinocerous Beetle, it lacks the Rhino-like horn of the males but is almost as large. She was particularly hefty and quite strong. This beetle is about 5cm long.

A large Praying Mantis. Well camoflaged, they wait, wait and wait then when something tasty comes along...BAM! Lunch is served stabbed by and stuck to the forearms, eaten alive to preserve 'freshness'. As is a particularly nasty 'sashimi' dish that I will not partake in, I prefer my fish dead. Raw or cooked, it must be dead.

Sometimes they like to take a walk across the parking lot, and strike a pose for the camera.

Cleanliness is next to godliness I have heard.

Which god might this be?

It spotted me spotting it as it was stalking prey.

Antheraea yamamai. A bit like a flying plush toy.

It's 'The Hungry Catepillar'!

Dragonflies have the most jewel-like eyes. All 5 eyes.

Apiphobics may want to skip the next picture.

Vespa Mandarinia, the Asian Giant Hornet! Each is 5cm long, they kill people every year in Japan. Japanese people also eat them. This appears to be a group that has left the main nest and will escort a Queen, presumably in the centre of this mass of hornets. In this picture we can see 11 hornets, I don't know how many are on the other side of the leaf. None of them challenged me as I took the picture, sans flash, and quickly got out of there.

Leucauge subblanda: A rather beatiful little spider.

Dolomedes sulfureus. A large golden spider, I was most surprized by its colour.