I was walking past the Tarantula Wolf Spider burrow this morning and noticed that she has closed the entrance completely. I can only assume this is because she now either has young or is egg laying. I will keep monitoring to see what happens.
For those that have followed my exploits for a few years will know that I love the “behind the scenes” preparation of getting a great shot. Sometimes it’s like the TV show Scrapheap Challenge. I’ve been wanting to build this project for a while and this morning I found just the perfect prop for my new Bodge-Job Rogers Project. A broken water-heating solar panel, so I got to work to strip it down leaving just the aluminium casing.
I take a camera along on my Dog Walks to bring you some of the sightings that I see on my morning walks, these photos are rarely going to be great quality as its hard enough keeping an energetic Dog entertained and get close enough to anything. They also help me identify where species are so that I can plan to return.
The river has now dried up (as normal this time of year) but there are a lot of large pools remaining. I have noticed that the Louisiana Crayfish are spending time out of the water. I was walking down the dried river bed and stumbled across this little fella who immediately went into fight mode with his pincers ready! In the water they can swim backwards extremely quickly, however, out of the water they are slow and clumsy so have to defend themselves. You may remember I took some Underwater Photos of the Crayfish a short while back.
I didn’t take a camera this morning, so the mobile had to do;
With my Tarantula Wolf Spider and Wasp Spider posts it seems that its all about Spiders at the moment, this isn’t intentional at all.
Today I was clearing out a space in our loft to make a new area for my new professional photo printer (more on this in the coming weeks) and I found a spider hiding. I knew immediately that it was a Brown Recluse. This is the only Spider in Portugal that can be an issue for humans even the European Black Widow or False Widow are not too bad.. It’s not a large spider and looks very harmless, however, it’s bite which is not always felt can develop into complications.
This morning I walked past the Tarantula nest and it came out to say “Bom Dia”. I will be setting up a rig to get a much better shot, but here is one I snapped on my mobile.
See Yesterday’s Post for more details of the Lycosa tarantula.
I take a camera along on my Dog Walks to bring you some of the sightings that I see on my morning walks, these photos are rarely going to be great quality as its hard enough keeping an energetic Dog entertained and get close enough to anything. They also help me identify where species are so that I can plan to return.
No it’s not a title of a new movie but here in Portugal we have the original Tarantula. You probably associate Tarantulas with the big hairy spiders such as the Mexican Red Knee Tarantula, however, these are not the original species of Tarantula and should actually be classed as Bird-Eaters. Tarantulas are actually less scary to anyone suffering from arachnophobia and even though they can bite if continually provoked, the bite is more like a Bee Sting rather than a lethal poison.
This morning, I was walking the dog and I spotted movement in a small hole under a flat pebble and soon noticed the bird nest looking entrance. There was a Tarantula poking it’s head out waiting for breakfast. I managed to get this quick snap on my phone before it retreated.
