This morning started out with a mind-blowing sunrise. The sun is actually rising up over on the right side of the shot, just to the left of Faded Glory.  However, there was a huge cumulonimbus cloud thumping with lightning flashes over in the northwest. This shot covers nearly 180°. The glow in the cloud is not from the lightning in the thunderstorm, but from the reddish light from the rising sun. This is one of the more unusual sunrises that I’ve seen. It certainly started my day nicely:
It’s worth a click on the shot above to see it full sized. I even caught a few birds flying around over the harbour.

I had a little walkabout in my garden. Yesterday, I showed you this little green spider hiding from me. Here it is waiting on a flower for a tasty insectoid aviator to land nearby:

It has noticed me fooling around near his territory and attempts a bluff to scare me off.

It didn’t work. I didn’t go away. So, he did one of those, “Hey you! You lookin’ at me? You want trouble? I got yer trouble buddy!”:

It still didn’t work. I took its picture anyway. The spider was humiliated and retreated to a greener place to sulk in camouflaged silence.

Now this is a spider to be reckoned with. I did no teasing here. I stood back respectfully, flicked my flash on and coaxed in a little telephoto:That is a shot of his underside. Notice the “fake-out stripe”.

Here’s a better shot of the spider sitting in the middle of his metre-wide web. I know little about spiders, but I’m pretty sure that the white webby stuff is what I think of as a “fake-out stripe” I think that it’s supposed to fool insects into thinking that there’s no spider there at all – it’s just a funny looking stick or something – no danger here:

Well, that’s enough Araneae  for today. I don’t want to creep anybody out.

I’m tossing in a variation of a sunrise that I did a day or two ago. I like the colours better on this one:You can’t improve  on nature’s beauty, but you can interpret  it.

Related posts:

1. Along Came a Spider Well, nothing has happened at all concerning moving Madang – Ples Bilong Mi to a new server. It turns out that I’m a complete incompetent. I did my best, but it’s not working. So, we’ll stay put for the time being until I can get somebody smarter to help me....
2. A Little Nature Walk in My Garden It's good to get out in the morning to catch the sunrise and think about what the day may bring. A quiet walk in the garden is just the ticket!...
3. The Spider and the Fly And then the fly flew. I doubt a spider thinks much about disappointment. It's a waiting game. Patience is the key. The occasional meal will suffice. Would that we had such patience....
4. Sunrise Madness A day off work with a bad cold can still be tolerable. I have plenty of sunrise shots that I haven't processed yet....
5. Suspicious Skies If you can't spot the fakery in these Photoshop images, then you need to see your optometrist. From the computer of a man who is never satisfied with nature....
6. Spiders, a Hazardous Crab and a Pesky Butterfly Today's menu features a couple of tasty spiders, a half eaten beetle, an impudent butterfly and a very dangerous crab. Eat by the light of the sunrise. ...
7. Saturday at Last! A hard week it was. Tangled wires, surly servers . . . never mind. It's Saturday and time to go out for a dive and enjoy the scenery. All of the scenery!...

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 10:46 and is filed under Mixed Nuts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.