Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning

I'm back and took in a Micky-D lunch after church. Spotted a single strand of silk - attached to a big leaf. Being the curious person that I am, I looked under the leaf. There was a ball of something - suspended by threads - and a blob of something - that appears to have legs folded. Is this the post-molt phase in a spider's life. Waiting for the exoskeleton to harden?

Here is is a face of the blob.

This appeared to be an egg sac so I got to thinking that this combination is probably not a coincidence - but maybe something quite interesting. After a visit (below) with a mechanical flying insect, I went home and thought that this deserved better characterization so I returned later in the afternoon to better characterize her. It turns out that this is called the Bird dropping spider, Cyrtarachne bufo. The name is quite obvious.

Then there was a mechanical insect - called a helicopter

This guy was practicing attitude control. He seemed to have it down: he smiled, he was pleasant, he told me in a calm voice what he was doing. And the mechanical flying insect seemed to have it down also - level flight, nice turns etc etc etc. What a pleasant surprise.

Engine start

From behind

Blue-Green copter flying

Helicopter man

Red copter flying

Red copter flying

Tuneup

Tuneup man

Playtime over

End of fun

C. Frank Starmer

-