Orb Weaver

About a year ago I posted a photo of a common house fly so this year, in order to honor the equal time for opposing parties rule, I am posting a photo of a spider. This particular spider built and maintains his web just outside my door so I see him every day. My spider identification skills are rudimentary at best but it appears this is a member of the Orb Weaver family. However since there are over 3,000 species in this family I will not attempt a more specific identification. Whenever I focus in on insects I am amazed at how hairy they are!

Another world....

These are probably not the world's smallest flowers but they are very small - smaller than a pinhead and nearly invisible unless you get your nose right down on the ground. I don't know what these flowers are called and this is not a very good photo for identification purposes, but this is one of those photos that makes me happy to be a photographer.

Bouquet for Lichen Lovers

We live in a world defined by the limitations of our sense organs. Yet if we could focus down to two or three times the resolution of our normal eyesight, what worlds of strange and extraordinary beauty we could discover. I can't afford a true macro lens so I have lately been experimenting with a reversed 50 mm prime lens that provides considerable magnification and the photo above is a first experiment. It is Victoria but a very small part of Victoria, located in my back yard, in a little grove of lichen.