surface tension

...I rather suspect that a few visitors to my blip today may run away quickly!

It has been a beautiful day and an even better evening so, late this afternoon, we found ourselves back at Arne RSPB reserve looking for Downy Emerald dragonflies. Once again, no show. It was while I was getting a few half-decent shots of some Four Spotted Chasers that I spotted, first, a juvenile and, then, an adult Raft Spider Dolomedes fimbriatus. Along with the Great Raft Spider (or Fen Raft Spider), these are the largest spiders we have in the UK and are very localised. This is a female and she uses surface tension to stand on the water. You will notice that she has a couple of her legs raised. When she senses some prey beneath the water (mostly invertebrates) she uses her raised legs to break the surface tension and dive under the water to grab her lunch.

Ideally, I would have preferred not to have that distracting tussock grass blade in the image but such is life...