Continuing yesterday's spidery them, these are a few shots I took in the early hours of Sunday morning. I'd been scouting around for something (anything?) interesting and having failed only spotted this as I was about to come back inside. It's a nursery web spider (at least that's my best attempt at an identification) with her egg sac. She will find a secure place to 'plant' the sac and then protect it with a small tent of webbing. 
And while on spiders, I posted this tangle of legs in my 365 album a few days ago, without really understanding what it was. I now think that it's a spider shedding its exoskeleton.
Now for some brighter pictures from today… I'll start with a black-headed gull.
And a couple of shots of a very friendly mallard.
Camera note: spider shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens. The birds were photographed with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.
gdare
5 Sep 2011Very friendly mallard… or very hungry mallard? 😀
Cynthia23
5 Sep 2011Nice gull photo. Really, Words, the way that you can capture these muted hues, yet keep the crispness is fantastic. Good shots today.
Dudley
5 Sep 2011What a great angle on the mallard
Words
5 Sep 2011Andy, thanks! It was heading straight for me. With the 400mm it's always a struggle not to think they're closer than they actually are.
Words
5 Sep 2011Darko, we didn't have any food so they were definitely friendly but probably still hungry as well 😉
Words
5 Sep 2011Cynthia, thanks. That was my favourite of the gull shots I took, because of the out of focus ones in the background. I use a fairly wide aperture which reduces the depth of field, especially if there's some distance between the subject which is in focus and the background.
Words
5 Sep 2011Erwin, thanks!
SittingFox
13 Sep 2011Interesting shots of the spider :bug:
Words
13 Sep 2011Adele, it's a good time of year for them, if only the wind would drop.
Wulpen
19 Oct 2012Like always a great set of Pict