Friday at the Flicks - House Sparrows & Stretch Spiders

One particularly hot day many of the local House Sparrows spent a lazy time Sunbathing on my shed roof. Who says their numbers are in decline? Here they have been breeding well this year:




I have tried several time to video the Stretch Spiders which build their webs between the plants in my garden pond. They seem to re-build them every day, if not more than once a day. This is the best I have managed so far. The webs are large and they work so quickly it isn't easy to try getting in really close:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Stretch Spider and a Dandelion Clock

Frost on the ground first thing this morning but fortunately it soon melted when the Sun got up.

There are lots of these Stretch Spiders which build their webs between the vertical leaves of my pond plants. I tried to get in close while this one was in the middle of its web but every time it made a dash for its hiding spot where it stretched out along the underneath of a leaf but still kept one leg attached to the web, just in case there was food about:



As children we used to blow on the seed heads of dandelions, the game was to tell the time by how many goes it took to blow all the seeds away:



Both photos are hand held macro shots.


Great Tit;
The egg count has finished at eight and Mama is spending long periods on the nest with Papa bring a tasty grub to feed her every now and then.