I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes.....

Well...just spiders.

In spite of that fact, I am fascinated by their behavior. Today, I spent some time watching a rather large jumping spider (I don't think they build webs) on the prowl.

This was most interesting.

I spotted it climbing up the stalk of a rather tall false sunflower. It scrabbled it's way up to the bottom of the bright yellow triple sunflower bloom and disappeared. But not for long. It then clawed it's way to the top of the bloom and looked around for a minute. Nothing was there.

So it moved on.

This was most interesting.

I was wondering what it would do when it got to the top of it's little mountain. Look for another mountain to climb was the answer. It jumped to the nearest stalk and started scrambling up. It was doing a real good impression of a rock climber, minus all the ropes and gear. It got to the top, looked around, waited a bit, then moved on.

Next stalk, same procedure.

I never did get to see it make a kill. I got distracted by a butterfly.

I sound a bit like I've got attention deficit disorder, don't I?

The butterfly must have had it's own secret game plan for the day. It did a whole lot of flitting, but no eating. I have flowers galore in my garden, but it just seemed to flit about mindlessly, on some secret scavenger hunt. I never saw it find what it was looking for.

Creatures of the garden are fun to watch. All of them put on quite the show if you take the time to get good seating. Some I only hear.

Like this new bird. I don't know what it is for sure, but it chirps all day long. The sound reminds me of an angry hummingbird, but I've never heard one that loud before. Try as I might, I can't seem to catch a glimpse of it. I just hear the constant chirping.

Tomorrow, I think I'll watch the bumble bees.