Garden Spider and prey

I wandered around the garden for an hour this afternoon and wasn't expecting to come across such a gory sight. There is something distinctly horror movie feel about these shots as the Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) cocoons its prey in its web to consumer sometime later.

All shots Canon 1Ds Mk III, Canon 100mm prime L series macro lens + 35mm extension tubes

Italian Wall Lizard

Hello again. I'm just back from a holiday in Italy and Switzerland, so my apologies for the absence of new posts. It's traditional in my family that whenever I go to Italy I have to get a decent shot of a Wall Lizard. Unsurprisingly, I saw none in Milan and none in Geneva, but once we got to Lake Maggiore there were plenty around. So, here are a couple – I particularly like the way the blue backdrop echoes the markings on the lizard's underbelly in the second shot.