Sit Still, Don't Move

The warm sun is just too inviting to remain indoors!

It was time for a quick lunch break. As I didn't have too much time I went into the fields next door. There is a favourite spot where the stonewall has crumbled long time ago.

The stones are already warmed by the sun. I pick one of the stone as seat and make myself comfortable. It takes a while for the eyes to adapt to seeing nature rather than letters and numbers.

Warm stones are much desired by all beings it seems and it does not take long at all before the first small creatures make their appearance.

Here we have the ground beetle again. As always, they are very hard to capture because they seem to be in a terrible hurry and move incredibly fast.  This makes it very difficult to move with them while adjusting all the settings on the camera, constantly!

A bit further away in this group of loose stones is a spot on which a nursery web spider* likes to sit and either sunbathes or hunts. It has been there now for 2 days in a row. 

The above photograph was taken in the evening of the previous day (hence the rather dodgy lighting). They are very beautiful beings. And like on the previous day, the place was full with seemingly half asleep St.Mark's Flies. I had to move very carefully so that I would not to lean or step on them. One unfortunate fly took off from one stone but the wind carried it straight to the spider who within a split second grabbed hold of it!

And here it is, the nursery web spider dealing with its catch, which is still desperately twitching and trying to get away ... but soon all movement ceased.

*Nursery web spider females tend to eat the males after mating. To avoid this, the male brings as a gift a carefully wrapped insect, hoping it will calm her hunger. However, apparently some males bring fake gifts and the female, upon noticing this, will terminate the mating (and the male, I guess...). 

The scarab beetle, a very tiny beetle and very slow moving. While the slow moving is most welcome from a photographers point of view (mine at least), this beetle just refuses to pose and takes off  ...

... and takes off again!

There is certainly no lack of spiders ... I need to look this one up at some point. It has a stunning pattern!

And then I came across this ... 

... at first I thought it was another species of spider, albeit a little oddly shaped. Only at home upon looking at the photograph on the screen did I realise that it's body had been eaten ... by what or how it turned into this state I don't quite know. Did he bring the wrong gift?

If any of you readers can shed some light on this, I'd love to know!

Of course the weevil also had to make an appurtenance although it wasn't so sure what to make of the camera lens.

With the temperatures rising, I except more and more beetles and bugs to make their appearance very soon!