Morning through the Kitchen Window

Return of Through the Kitchen Window.

Through the Kitchen Glass, Brightly.

Vagrant Spider (Uliodon albopuntatus)

Well, everyone at the party was morbidly fascinated to see the large male New Zealand vagrant spider  that came into the house last night, and, became suddenly pleased to just be putting up with mozzies outside, instead of this inside.  
I think this is a male, as his body is relatively slim and his legs are long. He spanned about 5 cm. I love his orangey pink pedipalps. He probably came inside looking for a mate as this is a common behaviour in Autumn.  He uses his palps to taste and smell, and also, through a special bulb that develops on the palps, to transfer sperm to the female during mating.

You can see his orange pedipalps clearly here.

A good image to show some of his eyes.  I think I counted eight altogether.

Vagrant Spider

       Here's a lovely male Vagrant Spider that came inside tonight.  He is about 6cm across. We have been having a BBQ party to say farewell to my son James and his lovely German girlfriend Silke, and the doors were open so I guess he thought he would pop inside and check out the place.
They are nocturnal, not well studied, and man, can they run fast!  This one pattered audibly across the carpet before I cornered him and got him into a jar.  I will take some more photos and let him go down the bank of the estate.

See the salmon-pink palp… I thought it was a bit of debris on the carpet at first, until I looked them up. In twenty-two years here, it's the first one I've seen.

Some people keep them as pets, and I can certainly see the appeal.

Loads more news to share.  See you tomorrow.

Brown Mantis, Green Mantis.

About the time I left home and went to University, 1978, New Zealand was  I N V A D E D .
Before then, if I saw a praying mantis, those pumas of the insect world, those bold, confident and king predators, it was certain to be the New Zealand species: bright green, with a peacock feather-coloured eyespot on each forearm.
Then from somewhere, the South African mantis began to take over. Brown or green, with a fluffy egg-case, but no bluey-yellow eyespots, the South African female mantis even wastes the time and energy of the NZ males, for she sends a more alluring scent than the rare NZ female.
Here are a couple of the now far more common invaders on James' pitcher plant. I can't remember the last time I saw a real NZ mantis. Pity the pitchers aren't bigger ...

Can you spot them? There's a brown one and a green one. 

Here they are closer ... 

More information here:  http://www.radiolive.co.nz/How-you-can-help-save-our-native-praying-mantis/tabid/432/articleID/21079/Default.aspx

Art Prep Exercise

 My assignment:

Copy the sentences below into your journal and fill in the blanks. Feel free to illustrate your musings if you like.

 

Once, I lived in a tree house because __________________________.

 

I furnished it with________________________________________.

 

My tree house had a style you might call ________________________.

 

My tree house looked like ____________________________________.

 

People would say this about me:_______________________________.

Once, I lived in a tree house because my house was dark and gloomy and I so I left it for the entire summer to be surrounded by the sound of growing, the smell of green, and the twinkling colour of birdsong every morning.

 

I furnished it with only natural materials that would harmonise with my new summer home, and that could provide nesting materials for the birds, food for insects, or would simply disappear back into the environment when I had to leave when winter came

 

My tree house had a style you might call 'econouveau', and I was so popular with the birds and animals they became tame and would eat peanut butter off my toes when I rested them on the windowsills. 

 

My tree house looked like a tree. It was almost invisible in amongst the branches unless you looked really hard, or visited at night and spotted the faint gleam of my hurricane lamp.

 

People would say this about me: 'She's taken this environmentally-friendly lifestyle too far!' But secretly they were intrigued and unknown to each other visited my in my treehouse clandestinely and stayed to eat mandarins, cashew nuts cake and ginger beer, and play scrabble and then were easily persuaded to sleep the night, watching the stars wheel beyond the leaves, the moon rise and set, and always leaving refreshed as they descended the ladder in the morning.