On this date 44

Three weeks ago, I speculated that the choices for the On This Date posts were getting thinner because the shooting season slows down in the fall and winter, which is true – but not damn yet. I shot a lot on October 28th for various years.

You scoff? We start with 2012, as the end of the world loomed.

unidentified crab spider attempting to either set anchor line of balloon away
This is the first of the bug-n-purple pics for today, an unidentified crab spider that spent a lot of time casting webbing into the wind. Whether this was for creating new anchor/wandering lines, or an attempt to balloon to a new location, or simply from homemade chili the previous night, I cannot say and neither did it. This is a difficult thing to capture in camera because the light has to hit the web strand just right to show it, and focus gets short at this magnification, but I was valiantly making the attempt this day anyway (judging from the large number of photos in the folders, and those were the ones that I kept.)

bumble or carpenter bee on flower seen as silhouette on leaf
With the end of the world postponed indefinitely, in 2014 I was down at a nearby pond (no, a different one) watching a bumble bee or carpenter bee partaking of a pickerelweed (Pontederia) flower, as seen by its shadow on a leaf of the very same plant. How this has not taken first place in countless art shows, I’ll never know (though not entering any is probably a contributing factor. Among others.)

magnolia green jumping spider Lyssomanes viridis showing mismatched eyes
In 2015, I had a magnolia green jumping spider (Lyssomanes viridis) on hand and was photographing the curiously visible retinas as they moved independently within the cephalothorax, thus the odd effects in the eyes. If you want to see video of this (and of course you do,) go here. It’s really damn cool.

unidentified insect possibly Spilomyia longicornis flying away from aster bloom
Continuing the bug-n-purple theme, in 2016 I was photographing an unidentified insect, what I initially took to be a hoverfly but now suspect is a syrphid fly (possibly Spilomyia longicornis – note the alternating breaks in the abdominal banding) on an aster bloom, and caught a frame just as it flew off. Getting decent photos of insects in midair is far too stress-inducing for someone my age, but I’ll take them when they happen serendipitously. Is that a word?

And finally, closing out the theme in 2017.

unidentified hoverflies within unidentified pond lily blossom
I don’t know the exact species of these hoverflies, or even of the pond lily, but I’m happy to take the opportunity to hurt your eyes and be thematic at the same time. A variation of this same kind of flower, in different light, can be seen here, and did make it into my gallery showing just over a year later, but it wasn’t the kind of thing where you get awards, which is good, because I would have made everyone else participating feel bad, and I’m nicer than that. Barely.