Anything Goes Thursday

Before I was a writer, I was a wildlife photographer. Photography is actually what led me to writing fiction. I still have some of my favorite pictures and thought I’d share a couple here.

The first photo is a young Argiope spider on its dew-dropped web, backlit from the rising sun. You can just make out the black markings on its abdomen. What you can’t see is how bright yellow that abdomen is. They are really quite striking.

The second picture is a close-up shot of an adult Argiope spider. You can clearly see the yellow in this picture. Unlike the first spider who has clearly delineated stripes, this one has a black “spine” that looks like a creature with its hands on its hips and two yellow eyes in its head. Can you see that? I can’t unsee it now that I know it’s there.

The third image is a crab spider on a wild bee balm blossom. I took this shot right before it snatched the bug near the spider’s left front leg.