Bonus: Jumping on a ‘mum

Cute little jumping spider on a chrysanthemum. If you look close, you can see some ‘mum pollen on a strand of spider web – there just to the left of the spider. These critters fascinate me. As I was shooting (and I only had a few seconds before the spider got nervous), three bees landed on the flower, must have noticed the spider, and skedaddled. (Never knew how that word was spelled, but spell check did.)

Rate this photo

Bonus – Spiders Do What Spiders Do

Looks like this jumping spider made a successful jump. She had a really hard time getting the bee out of the tulip. Wrestled and wrestled with it. Tried a lot of paths out. I watched for maybe five minutes and got distracted. Checked an hour or so later and she’d finally pulled the bee away to somewhere. She sure had a hard time exiting the tulip, though. I know photos like this disturb some folks, but it’s all part of the dynamic of the garden – the dynamic of this world. And it deserves to be noticed.

Rate this photo

Bonus! – Jumping Spider in the Russian Sage

I’ve sure been delinquent in posting these “bonus” shots of other pollinators (or inadvertent pollinators – in this case). Oh, well. Maybe I’ll be less harried in the colder months. Or not…

Enjoy this one. It’s fun to watch them hunt…and jump at other critters.

Rate this photo

Bonus – I Think the Kids Say: REKT!!

Two things here: first it’s just danged interesting to see. Got one on a wall the other day of a jumping spider with a honeybee in its clutches, but wasn’t quite clear enough to post. This time, it was a bulb fly- one of those nasty ones flies that wrecks the daffodils.

The other is the mimicry evident in the fly. Looks lots like a small bumble. Great adaptive move.

Rate this photo

Bonus 004 – Jumping Spider on a Geranium

If this site is about bees and the occasional bonus pollinator, I’m not sure that this shot belongs. But it’s such a neat shot of a tiny, tiny spider that I thought that I’d use poetic license (it’s my site, my rules, right?) and name it an “honorary inadvertent pollinator” for today. All that hair, too…have to think that there’s some transfer here and there now and then?

Rate this photo