One evening recently while I was in the woods, I noticed some spiderwebs being backlit by the setting sun. As it turns out, my newer lens works great for spiderwebs, and after taking a couple fairly standard head-on pictures, I started experimenting with the angle. I didn’t have very long to work with this scene, though, because the sun was only illuminating each web for a few minutes (there were three webs that I found). I would have enjoyed more time with this subject, but I was happy with this photo.
I was out with my camera one day and I spotted this little jumping spider with an impressively large catch (a green bottle fly, I think). Jumping spiders are active little hunters; they do not build webs and wait for prey to get trapped, they search out and pounce on their prey. In this case, by the time I spotted them both the fly and the spider were suspended in midair by a strand of the spider’s silk (which they use as a safety line when they leap off of things) and spinning wildly. I’m not sure if the spider managed to pounce on the fly in midair or if the fly took off right after being pounced on.
This was the first picture in the series, when the spider and fly were still spinning. I was using a relatively fast shutter speed, but you can still see the motion blur from the spinning. I think it makes for an interesting action shot, though.After subduing the fly, the spider reeled it up the silk thread.
A couple of times this year, I have witnessed the ant colonies in the yard swarming. Or at least, that’s what I’m inclined to call it; as a beekeeper, swarming means colony reproduction to me. But the process is different for ants, and I’m not sure swarming is the right word for their colony reproduction. All the colonies send out their young queens and drones (is drones what it’s called for ants?) to mate and presumably hibernate and start new colonies next spring. The workers do not accompany them as honey bees do. Each colony sends out dozens if not hundreds of queens. The queens seemed reluctant to leave; it looked like the worker ants were herding them out, and appeared to be chasing and even biting the young queens. The queens have good reason to be reluctant; their odds for surviving their flight are terrible. There’s a reason each colony sends out so many.
A queen being herded to the edge of a leafThe worker on the left looks like she’s nipping the young queen.
By the time I started taking pictures, most of the queens had taken flight already, (this first part happens impressively quickly) and many of those that were left had damaged looking wings. They were trying to leave, and the workers were insisting, but their wings were causing them difficulty.
This queen is actually missing one of her wingsAnt queens and workers on a leaf. A couple of them have slightly battered looking wings.This queen seems to have good wingsOne of the workers looks like she’s getting ready to bite the queen’s leg
All colonies of a particular species of ant sends out their winged offspring at once, and for a few hours, the air is thick with flying ants. Not too surprisingly, any creatures that like to eat insects see this as a brief opportunity to feast.
This is how most of the flying ants will end up; as food, not necessarily for a jumping spider specifically, but for many different predatory insects, spiders and birds.
I have seen ant colonies sending out their queens in previous years, but this year, not only did I see it happen twice, it seemed like there were just a lot more ants. It seemed like every few feet was another clump of ants, sending off their young queens.
