The Itty Bitty Spider...

...Sat guard atop his flower. The tiny guard looks better in large.

I did a quick scan of the garden before venturing off to find a blip. Sometimes it pays off other times I find the garden empty of interest. Today, I had just about decided to move on when I spotted this dot on my bell flowers. On the very top flower sat this little spider, so small that I had to use my macro lens to identify him as a jumping spider (the head and eyes are the give away). The stem of this bell flower is barely an 1/8th of an inch in diameter, so you can imagine how small he actually is.

It took some maneuvering to get my body in a good location (the right angle and a way to support my camera well - any camera shake would ruin a shot this tight). Eventually, I ended up sitting on a small wall tucked in behind many tall plants and endured the ants that were crawling all over my new perch. I gave up when one of those ants crawled across my LCD screen... if it made it there... where else did they make it?... Next, a shower. But I was happy to have gotten a nice shot of this little bugger. :)