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The Tarantula Wolf Spider With Her Babies (Video)

3rd November 20183rd November 2018Craig Rogers

Whilst walking Wally (the dog) this morning, our local Tarantula Wolf Spider (Lycosa tarantula) was out of her nest either feeding on the many flies and ants the rain has brought out or she was making home improvements to her burrow opening.

As soon as she saw me she darted into the nest so I set my mobile (Samsung Galaxy S8+) up outside her burrow and left it there while I wandered along to the river. About 10 minutes later I returned to witness her dart into the burrow again.

This is the video the phone captured. You can clearly see the babies moving around on her back. They are getting quite large now and some have even started to wander around the outside of the burrow and even leave on their own life adventures. Who knows, maybe she’s outside trying to get them to pluck up the courage to leave. You’ll notice she has quite a nice garden and lawn growing now due to the recent rain.

{Remember to watch in HD if possible}

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Flying Ant Day – Nuptial Flight (Video)

16th October 201816th October 2018Craig Rogers

One day every year, when the conditions are right, Winged Ants take to the air in order to create new colonies. Today, here all around the Quinta the skies became full of large flying Ants. There are many Ant species in Portugal, which these are I’m not certain (please get in touch if you know!).

Deep inside the Ant colonies, Winged species are breed and wait until its time for the Nuptial flight. Both Males and Virgin Queens take to the skies. The Queens release pheromones to entice males. Successful males mate with multiple Queens before dying, yep, their life is complete! The Queens, which now have their Spermatheca organ full of sperm, land back on the ground. They contain enough sperm to fertilise eggs for their entire lifetime, which I have read can be up to 20 years! On the ground, the (no longer) Virgin Queen has to find a new location to build her new colony and constantly lay eggs. They no longer have a use for the wings, so they tear them off and discard them. Fascinated by this I grabbed my Mobile Phone and recorded a few clips.

Here is the edit I put together to show this amazing transformation.

{Remember to watch in HD if possible}

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“Consequência – Depois dos Incêndios” Is Now Available To Watch

24th August 20189th October 2019Craig Rogers

Almost 2 weeks have passed since the fires of Monchique were finally extinguished. Once the fires were out, I made a trip around the locally burnt areas and was shocked at just how large an area was affected and the amount of devastation left behind, I was (and still am) genuinely saddened by the scenes. I was determined to try and capture the scale of what happened to the almost 28,000 hectares burnt within just 7 days.

It has taken a fair amount of filming and editing to bring you “Consequência – Depois dos Incêndios” which translates to “Consequence – After the Fires”. Up until yesterday, I was still filming and still you can see areas of ash with smoke rising and occasionally there seems to be small flare-ups in the areas, particularly around Monchique. As you will see in the film, some of the ground has white ash spots or holes where trees once stood and have completely vanished. Other areas have an eerie beauty, such as the Eucalyptus trees with their scorched leaves, at first they appear to be stunning Autumn colours, of course, they are not.

Feel free to share this YouTube video, however, one thing I strongly ask is it is not used in any political argument about how bad or good the emergency services dealt with the situation. I did not create this film with any bias towards either side of the argument. For the record though, I am amazed at how well properties have been saved. The video is available in both HD and 4K if you have the Internet bandwidth and/or equipment to play it in those resolutions.

{Remember to watch in HD or 4K if possible}

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Tarantula Wolf Spider Served Breakfast (inc. Video)

18th July 201818th July 2018Craig Rogers

After discovering the Tarantula Wolf Spider burrow a few days ago (see blog posts), I decided to set up two cameras, one for a photography and another for video. I then dropped a Mealworm near the burrow that she gladly came out for a breakfast treat!

Due to the size, I think this is a female as they are considerable larger than the males. The female’s body grows to about 3cm whereas the male is only around 2cm. Also, the females live their entire lives in their burrows and the smaller males go off in search of females. In the winter they hibernate in the burrows. As you will notice in the video below, the burrow opening is almost 5cm wide which helps visualise the size of her.

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Glow-worm in the garden (Video)

17th July 201818th July 2018Craig Rogers

The European Glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca) is fairly common here in the hills, we see many of the males as they are sometimes attracted by artificial lights. Tonight, a female was proudly displaying her lights to attract a male.

The European Glow-worm is a species of Firefly which are actually Beetles. Only the males take the form of beetles and have the ability to fly, the females remain in almost larvae form. Using bioluminescence, they sit still with their light glowing pointing upwards to attract the male. The brighter the light the more chance of a male selecting her.

Armed with just my mobile phone, here is a photo of her, I returned her to her spot and she lit back up again.

Male Iberian Green Woodpecker (with Video)

17th June 201817th June 2018Craig Rogers

This morning I got into position to photograph Golden Orioles, however, they decided not to show up. Whilst I was waiting, a male Iberian Green Woodpecker showed up. I think this is a young bird due to the mottled colouring on its neck and back. The male has a red moustache that is absent on the female. Portuguese for Woodpecker is Pica-pau and the Iberian Green is known as the Pica-pau-verde (verde meaning green).

Although similar, the Iberian species has been split from the European Green Woodpecker. The main difference is the lack of the black mask on the face. The habitat and voice are very similar. The Picus sharpei (scientific name) can be found in Spain, Portugal and the bordering areas in South-West France. They prefer dry open-woodland which is why we have large numbers of them in our local area. It’s favourite food is Ants in which they certainly have a large selection to choose from here!

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