A spider and its fly

I feel guilty as I needed to do some work today and have managed very little as I couldn't resist watching the amazing footage of 'Le Tour de France' from its second day in Yorkshire. I have travelled to France to watch it and have been watching it more and more keenly ever since my old friend Pat W. first explained its intricacies nearly two decades ago.

But there was added distraction with the Wimbledon men's final which doesn't always attract me that much but somehow the personalities involved this year caught my attention. Once the race was over after much excitement in its its finale, I made tea and then concentrated on the tennis. But I kept noticing a butterfly outside the window hovering over the flowers in the front garden.

I left the tennis when it all seemed to be over, although a fifth set eventually arrived, and attached my macro lens and went to stalk the butterfly. That became a waste of time as despite all the hovering it decided not to land anywhere I could see it and I just stood amongst the flowers which still had remnants of the shower of rain from a short time before. Then I noticed this spider and when approaching it I touched its web, which seemed to alarm it as it rushed off to the protection of the plant to which it had attached its web.

But the lure of the fly that it had already trussed up in a cocoon at the centre of its now nearly non-existent web brought the spider back to the centre, to move its food around and finish off the job. I watched and took some photos which was a bit gruesome but fascinating as well. Here you can see some new threads it has just spun, which I presume it would use to tie the fly down. It was quite hard to get a sharp handheld shot as the wind was quite gusty, so anything reasonable sharp was a good result.