Spider killing a bee

By | Saturday, April 23, 2011 Leave a Comment
I haven't written a damn thing in a couple weeks. My combined email inboxes now contain over 1500 messages. My friends on Facebook wonder what happened to me...

It's spring time here and I have been spending all of my spare time (and then some) in the garden. The urgency is particularly great with the Hillside Gardens tour just one week away (I was interviewed for the local newspaper yesterday - nice.)

While I still have a lot to say, a lot to write, and a lot to cook, spending time outside definitely has advantages over sitting at my desk. Amongst many, many things, I get to see the natural (and naturalesque) world more deeply when I spend my time in the garden. Yesterday I was outside talking to my friend Andy (who is also my landscaper.) I saw a bee sitting on my white lilac but not moving. It was so odd, it was completely immobile, so I went closer to check it out. I realized that it was in the jaws of an almost perfectly camoulflaged spider. Wow! (Note that I cropped the image and increased the contrast in Photoshop to make the spider more visible.)


Creepy but beautiful, and fully part of the natural world. I like the ant peeking out from behind a flower petal just to the upper left of the scene.


Postscript 5/4/11:  Found this on Wikipedia. I think it is Misumena vatia. Apparently this spider can change color at will!
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