A pretty spider

And here's a spider we found on a walk at Shute Harbour. (Actually, we were the ones doing the walking.) My resident son-in-law tells me they are common and come in a variety of colours. Isn't Queensland wonderful?

Lunch time

Time for a coffee stop, keep a lookout for a likely spot, one with natural vegetation, shelter from wind or shade (whichever applies), level, accessible. There's one. Pull over and fill the kettle, wander around with the camera and binoculars while waiting for kettle to boil.

Our choice of a spot south of Coonamble was a gem. Really it was just an entrance to a station - mailbox (an old fridge) and a gate with the station name attached, but the wide road had lots of trees. The mistletoe was flowering and the trees had hollows and fallen timber underneath, only one car travelled alone the dirt road while we were there, a flat horizon with the blue Warrumbungles off into the distance to the south, the sun was shining and birds were flying from tree to tree and calling.

The grasshoppers were jumping around and in the roly-poly, and I found one little spider in amongst the prickles holding firmly to a little blue butterfly. It must have thought it was lunch time as well.

Gotcha!

Holidays have to come to an end unfortunately, but it was fun down on the farm at Heywood with the (extended) family.

The bush was dry, and the spring flowering over of course, but there were several areas of heath plants flowering well. The adult emu with about 10 young in tow gave us a surprise when they wandered across the track - well, the surprise was mutual really, and the chicks scattered in all directions.

Because of the lack of flowers I concentrated on finding insects in the foliage, with some success. It's great to find things tucked away in foliage and bark, getting on with what they do best. I found this beautiful little Triangular Spider on the edge of a leaf, sitting in its scrappy web with its big front legs stretched across the width of the leaf.

I took several photos, and when I looked again after fussing with camera controls ... it had caught a fly! I missed it. But I did get some good shots of the fly held firmly in the spider's grasp.

They call my garden home

My garden must be home for any number of creatures because when I actually go looking I usually find something. The little green spider was hanging on its web suspended between two leaves on the Darwinia citriodora bush, and the tiny pale spider didn't appear to have a web (although I do see a bit of web-like stuff in the bottom right of the photo). It just hung around at the bottom of a clump of a fine-leafed Lomandra growing in a pot and I only saw it because it moved when I watered.

Common but not ordinary

I like lichen, and the old apple tree is covered in a multicoloured carpet. After taking some photos I walked away, felt the spider in my hair and reacted of course, flicking it away. Then I decided to find it to see if I'd escaped death by a narrow margin.
The photo below was taken on the ground before the spider moved onto a small stick and curling up to an inconspicuous knot. I lifted the stick up and returned the spider to the apple tree, and it immediately moved to a patch of lichen and sat immobile. I would have had great difficulty seeing it if I didn't know where it was.
It's a Garden Orb-weaving Spider Eriophora biapicata. This species is common and can be identified by the humps on its back, and the bright red base of its legs. Its main claim to fame is that it builds a large circular web at dusk (usually, in my garden, in the path of a certain husband organising the rubbish bins) and devours it at dawn, repeating the process the following night. They rarely bite by the way, and if they do it's not usually a problem so my life was not under threat.