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Taken at one of my favorite places in the world! First Landing State Park (formerly Seashore State Park) in Virginia Beach, VA. www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fir.shtml
Golden Garden Spider, Agriope Aurantia, Female. They are beautiful and fascinating creatures!
Wikipedia
The spider species Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the Black and Yellow Garden Spider, Writing Spider, Banana Spider or Corn Spider. It is common to the lower 48 of the United States, Hawaii, southern Canada, Mexico, and Central America. They have distinctive yellow and black markings on their abdomens and a mostly white cephalothorax. Males range from 5 to 9 mm; females from 19 to 28 mm. Like other members of Argiope they are considered harmless to humans.
Garden Spiders often build webs in areas adjacent to open sunny fields where they stay concealed and protected from the wind. The spider can also be found along the eaves of houses and outbuildings or in any tall vegetation where they can securely stretch a web. The circular part of the female's web may reach two feet in diameter. Webs are built at elevations from two to eight feet off the ground.
Female Argiope aurantia spiders tend to be somewhat local, often staying in one place throughout much of their lifetime.
The web of the yellow garden spider is distinctive: a circular shape up to 2 feet in diameter, with a dense zigzag of silk, known as a stabilimentum, in the center. The purpose of the stabilimentum is disputed. It is possible that it acts as camouflage for the spider lurking in the web's center, but it may also attract insect prey, or even warn birds of the presence of the otherwise difficult-to-see web. Only those spiders that are active during the day construct stabilimenta in their webs.
To construct the web, several radial lines are stretched among four or five anchor points that can be more than three feet apart. The radial lines meet at a central point. The spider makes a frame with several more radial lines and then fills the center with a spiral of silk, leaving a 5/16" to 3/8" gap between the spiral rings, starting with the innermost ring and moving outward in a clockwise motion. To ensure that the web is taut, the spider bends the radial lines slightly together while applying the silk spiral. The female's web is substantially larger than the male's, who builds a small zig-zag web nearby. The spider occupies the center of the web, usually hanging head-down, waiting for prey to become ensnared in the web. If disturbed by a possible predator, she may drop from the web and hide on the ground nearby. The web normally remains in one location for the entire summer, but spiders can change locations usually early in the season, perhaps to find better protection or better hunting.
The Garden Spider can oscillate her web vigorously while she remains firmly attached in the center. This action might prevent predators like wasps and birds from drawing a good bead, and also to fully entangle an insect before it cuts itself loose.
In a daily ritual, the spider consumes the circular interior part of the web and then rebuilds it each morning with fresh new silk. The radial framework and anchoring lines are not usually replaced when the spider rebuilds the web. The spider may be recycling the chemicals used in web building. Additionally, the fine threads that she consumes appear to have tiny particles of what may be minuscule insects and organic matter that may contain nutrition.
The Garden Spider does not live in very dense location clusters like other orb spiders such as the Golden Orb Web Spider. The Garden Spider keeps a clean orderly web in comparison to the cluttered series of webs built and abandoned by groups of Golden Orb Spiders.
Yellow garden spiders breed once a year. The males roam in search of a female, building a small web near or actually in the female's web, then court the females by plucking strands on her web. Often, when the male approaches the female, he has a safety drop line ready, in case she attacks him. After mating, the male dies, and is sometimes then eaten by the female.
She lays her eggs at night on a sheet of silky material, then covers them with another layer of silk, then a protective brownish silk. She then uses her legs to form the sheet into a ball with an upturned neck. Egg sacs range from 5/8" to 1" in diameter. She often suspends the egg sac right on her web, near the center where she spends most of her time. Each spider produces from one to four sacs with perhaps over a thousand eggs inside each. She guards the eggs against predation as long as she is able. However, as the weather cools, she becomes more frail, and dies around the time of the first hard frost.
In the spring, the young spiders exit the sac and are so tiny that their collection of bodies look like dust gathered inside the silk mesh. Some of the spiderlings remain nearby, but others exude a strand of silk that gets caught by the breeze, carrying the spiderling to a more distant area.
I have had a number of people asking if we saw the ponies while we were hiking in Grayson Highlands State Park. Why yes, yes we did see the ponies! They are really beautiful creatures and so use to people hiking through.
Thanks for taking a look!!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful week.
Spend the day hiking yesterday!!! LOVE this time of year!!!
Hope you are having a wonderful week!!! Thanks for taking a moment to stop by and view my photo!!! Will be back later tonight to catch up on some of your beautiful work!!! Have a great day!!!
There's nothing quite like the fresh blossoms of spring wildflowers. These tiny flowers always remind me of peppermint candies.
(NDL8397)
I spent 6 days camping at First Landing State Park. This park is situated where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. If you look closely, in the distance, you can see the lights of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The bridge tunnel is a total of 23 miles long and connects the Tidewater area of Virginia with the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
The sun was setting and there was a nice reflection on the door of the rental cottage that I was staying in.
This is a path next to the Old Stone Bridge in Manassas Battlefield Park. I went out to scout the bridge for future photo opportunities, but with the weather being 95 degrees, the wind blowing 20 miles per hour and not a cloud in the sky, I didn't get a chance to stay long.
I was originally going to do an HDR and tonemapped version of this composition to include some of the sky in between the trees, but after processing all of the images, this exposure seemed to exemplify the image as I saw it the most, so here you go.
Let me know what you think.
Machicomoco State Park is Virginia newest state park. It is on the spot where the Powhatan Tribes set out their canoes to go fishing and hunting.
This cottonmouth was showing me that it was unhappy with my presence. I was trying to save the snake from being run over by the state park vehicle. It was sunning on the trail that is mostly used by bicycles. I alerted the park ranger and we finally managed to make it move off of the path.
It was holding it's ground on the bike path. I used my zoom lens to the max to get it's mouth when it was starting to open.
This ghost crab was trying to hide in the sea grass from my dogs. The dogs eventually spotted it but they soon learned that those claws are sharp.
Ok so I couldn't wait for the new computer to process this shot!!! We went walking today along the New River trail. This spot on the New River is called Foster Falls. Beautiful scenery, quiet and peaceful!!! It was a lovely day to be out enjoying God's glorious creation!!!
Thanks for taking a look!!!!!
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Caught my husband being lost in the moment. After 4 miles of hiking, this was our destination, a place to eat a snack, rest, and take in the wonders the view allowed us to see. That bench over to right, by the tree, was calling my name!!! After a bit we started the 4 miles back down easy enough, except the last mile was UPHILL!!!!!! I can do a 6 mile hike but that is pretty much my limit...by the time I finished this hike I was ready to fall down! This was Sunday, today my calf muscles and my back are screaming their displeasure!! But the view was amazing and TOTALLY worth the body aches!!!!!
Show of hands, who would like to see this processed not in a 'gray' midtone, but with about an additional stop of exposure to create a much stronger black - white contrast?
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IT'S BETTER: VIEWED ON BLACK & LARGE
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CHECK OUT MY PORTFOLIO
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Okay, so this is a slight re-processing of a shot I posted several months ago, but I much prefer it in B&W and it seems (at least to me) to be an almost completely different image, so I'm posting it as well.
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This is also one of the images I submitted to the 2009 FotoWeek DC contest so hopefully it's going to do well.
I cruised to Foster Falls last night after work to shoot the river under the full moon. As I made the final turn into the park I noticed a HUGE fire on the other side of the river. This was taken near the boat landing right before the 'falls' section, where the water is nice and smooth.
While this is probably more of a brush pile fire than a recreational bonfire, you can look closely at this image and see some beverages on the hood of a nearby truck. Plus, it would be very difficult to keep a fire that large burning for very long without insane amounts of wood. See this image of some campfires for comparison , it is looking the other way from the fire posted here.
Went hiking on Sunday. Here's a fresh look at the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia!
Thanks so much for taking a look!! I appreciate it :) Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday, and wishing you a good week ahead!!!
Albert Carroll Jones began building this mansion in 1852. It is an interesting story about how it survived the Civil War that raged around it. The grounds had fruit orchards and housed a legal distillery. There is documentation that both the Confederate forces and the Union forces were fond of the peach brandy that was produced here and neither of them wanted to disrupt the supply, so the mansion was left unscathed. Victor and Evelyn Stewart purchased the mansion and grounds in 1918. It was eventually donated to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1967 and became part of the Chippokes Plantation State Park.
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VIEW LARGE & ON BLACK
This is the Amtrak Regional Railway crossing the Potomac from Quantico Marine Corps Base. I liked how it seemed to be disappearing into the fog halfway into the river.
Let me know what you think.
The smoke lingered from the summer wildfires, but it was a beautiful cool June morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Raven's Roost Overlook
This bullfrog was stationary. A big snake had just left the area and I think it did not want to attract any unwanted attention.
I am surprised that that it could see down into the water with all of the algae. I wonder if they fish more from water disturbance.
I was so excited to finally take a photo of a bald eagle. I had spent 4 days in the Chippokes Plantation state park and biked to various viewing points along the James River. The only birds that I saw were the sea gulls. I had just put my camera in my backpack when I see this gorgeous thing flying by, I managed to get out my camera in time to get this one shot. Literally just a point and click, but I was happy!!! The park ranger told me this was one of the juveniles.
After a few stressful weeks, it was nice to enjoy a warm day along the trails at York River State Park.
This turtle was moving slow, but remember slow ans steady wins the race. Today must have been turtle day on my bike ride as they were everywhere.
Chippokes Plantation is one of the oldest continually farmed plantations in the country. A working farm since 1619, the park offers modern recreational activities and a glimpse of life in a bygone era. Visitors tour the historic area with its antebellum mansion and outbuildings, stroll through formal gardens, and view antique equipment at the Chippokes Farm and Forestry Museum. The River House was built on the property in the 1830 but has never been restored by the owners or the state. Black Vultures have taken up residence here.