Accidental naturalist

Today I saw a little spider flitting very fast on the window & sill. I captured him (I think it was a male) with a glass. Very pretty markings. How to photograph? First I thought I would put some gladwrap over the glass and shoot through that. was worried that wouldn't be very stable. Then thought of a little shallow porcelain dish I could try - luckily virtually the same diameter as the glass so transfer wasn't a problem. Used a piece of hard plastic to 'seal' him in. Then had another thought - a clear lens filter sitting on the dish would not fall off and should not affect too much the optics.

Here is that set up:

then to attempting to photograph. lots and lots of shots. spider wouldn't sit still. getting light tricky (couldn't use flash as it would just reflect). Tried a couple of different tripod setups. Had the jar on the floor under the big lounge windows and was lying / crouching on the floor to get angles for shots. D7500 + 85 micro lens

This is actually one of the early shots. Google provided me with an identification this evening - Nyssus coloripes or orange legged swift spider. http://www.findaspider.org.au/find/spiders/509.htm  http://www.arachne.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=1807  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssus_coloripes

From all the observations I did notice something really neat - he was cleaning his legs, one at a time by running them past the mouth parts. Depth of field proved an insurmountable obstacle to get a nice shot of that but I saw it nevertheless.  I also didn't register for ages that he was missing one leg.

A gorgeous little spider. I subsequently released him under the bushes outside.

 

In between changing tripods (teeny for small) I also noticed that a male blackbird was sitting quite still outside the lounge window. Grabbed the D3300 and wacked on the 70-300 AF-P and tried to get some shots through the (not very clean) window. The bird was also sitting in a patch of shade so lighting was tricky and trying focus on a black bird. I also noticed he had a grub or worm in his beak. The shot below is a moderate crop with some post processing but I don't think focus was nailed and that can't be provided after the fact. Might be a function of the dirty window too.

I like blackbirds - they have a beautiful song, and flit quickly about through the spring and summer. The hen bird is a drabber brown colour. Although an immigrant species they haven't gone nuts like Indian mynas.

Comments

[Thygocanberra]

It's OK Paul, I'll like the spiders for you.

Python, I don't understand which one you think is cut in half?

[Paul]

I actually like Indian Mynas, although they are a threat to native birds.

I don't like spiders.

[PythonMagus]

Good fun! The top photo seems cut in half