The rains finally came, and did so with vigor I must say, and while I was out last night doing some basic yard maintenance, they started up again while I was finding a couple of subjects to photograph. Thus, I went back out with a poncho on both myself and the camera to do a handful of shots (this was when it had slacked off to a half-hearted drizzle, and not the sideways walls of water that we’d had earlier.)
First off was noting that the molted exoskeleton from a few days before was still snagged in some webbing on a Japanese maple.
There wasn’t a reason to photograph this initially and I noted it in passing, but immediately afterward found another exoskeleton in the same tree, and so had to do the establishing shot. The new exoskeleton was of a spider, however – then I realized it wasn’t.
Well, it was, but not an empty one like I initially thought. This was instead a live spider hanging out waiting for the rains to cease, and I’m not going to try to identify it here because I didn’t capture enough detail – I feel comfortable saying it’s some kind of orbweaver, because I take comfort in such things. The raindrops were a necessary detail of course, even suspended in the web. By the way, there was no sign of this guy any time I looked today – don’t know where it got to.
I decided to check on someone in the front yard as I was already out with the rain gear. One of the smaller Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) has been found now and then on the front oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia,) and so it’s part of my routine patrol when I’m out. I’ll provide a photo snagged nine days back, that I didn’t post then, but when the anole was being its most obvious:
Like I said earlier, from the size I suspect this is last year’s brood, sprawled across the empty
twigs that supported the former flower cluster, hanging way out in space with total unconcern. However, every time I’ve spotted it since, its done a much better job of concealing itself, usually to the point that I either never see it, or it’s hidden enough that photos aren’t really worth the effort – yet, it greatly favors the end of this one main branch of the hydrangea. The previous night, it had the tip of its nose, with one eye visible, peeking out from under a leaf, still fast asleep, but when I returned some time later with the camera it had withdrawn its head and just the tail was visible. This was the same circumstance last night, in the exact same location, right before the monsoon struck, and I figured the fierce storm would have driven the tiny reptile into deeper cover, but a couple hours later during the light drizzle, it could still be seen in the same position.
Unfortunately at this resolution the finer raindrops still adhering to its haunches aren’t very visible, but this was enough to indicate that it had probably weathered the storm that way. I tried, from multiple angles, to get a peek at the face, with no luck.
You can just see one front foot peeking out from under a flower petal, but the petal edges were down tight to the leaf, forming an adequate shelter I guess, and nothing of its body or head showed anywhere. It knows what its doing.
It had been nearly three weeks without a drop of rain, all while the sun was beating down (well, during the day at least) and temperatures peaked in the 30s while not dropping too low at night, and the various plants were all suffering from it. This also meant that wildlife activity was at a minimum, as was mine – I was taking care of routine yard tasks but unwilling to spend much time stalking subjects, even at night. Not sure this has changed much right now, but at least the ground is saturated and the plants will be happier.