Red dragon in the sun

I hit the stream again this morning and headed downstream, to see if I could find a route through further than I did yesterday. I was successful and made it all the way to the main road, a distance of about a mile, probably less. To be honest, I didn't find any more than I did in the first 50 yards and my flip-flops ended up looking like platform clogs with all the caked mud.

A one mile stroll should not take all that long, but at Vman's blip-stroll pace, it takes more than two hours. Lots of good stuff again today, although the range of insect species is a bit limited at this location, so I am unlikely to get more than a week or two of original blips before I have to post repeats with suitable improvements.

The 'find of the day' was a huge golden orb weaver spider, let me say that again - a HUGE golden orb weaver spider! This was very close to the start of my walk, about 10 yards in, so I don't know how I missed it yesterday. It just shows to go how easy it would be to walk into one of these giant webs without seeing it! The spider is not dangerous, but such an experience would certainly disturb me and I am comfortable around spiders.

By the end of the walk, the sun was overhead and the temperatures way up on the high 90's (F). I spotted this dragon, the same species as yesterday and with a lot of stealth, managed to position myself sitting in front of it. This shot was actually not the image that I was looking for. On previous hot days I had noticed that the dragons sit with their abdomens raised and pointed to the sun. The reason clicked with me today, they are actually doing this to prevent overheating.

At just about the moment that the dragon was going to perform the maneuver for me, I heard, "Haya Def", followed by a series of rapid thuds as Fitri came charging over to greet me. I guess the pointing abdomen will wait for another day.

Update - Sorry, tomorrows spider blip has had to be postponed for now. Just found out that I have to travel to Singapore tomorrow, for the day. If all goes well, the spider blip will be the next day. Hopefully I can blip something tomorrow and report back.

Dave