Might as well jump

I interrupt the Norway posts again for some backyard drama. As you know, I often hang out on my deck with the camera. In the past I had just one body so switched between my 100-400mm for birds and the 45mm macro for wildlife of a smaller scale. Now I keep the long lens on the G9 M2 and the macro on the M1 which is very handy. All kinds of things call my deck home, or at least hunting grounds. Like this little Hentzia mitrata jumping spider –

Ok, that’s a little bit of a strange angle. Here’s a quick video to show you what’s going on –

Pretty intense huh? I was amazed at how long the fly struggled, but she held on deploying the triple threat – jaws, pedipalps and her forelegs.

And one more still, the same one I used at the end of the video –

She is actually on the side of the railing, not the top for that last one. The background is the leaf litter on the edge of the woods where it meets the lawn. I felt pretty bad about the other spider since I love them so much, but as I said, protein is protein and she makes no allowances for species. Jumpers aren’t the only cannibals though, I found what I believe was just an ordinary house spider in the bathroom with the corpses of three other spiders in her web. Darn girl! I put her outside where she might be able to do less harm than good.