The incredibly warm winter has made spring come early, as many people have commented. The bugs are out, and the flowers are in bloom, so we've been hiking a lot lately. My kids and I do quite a bit of hiking on the ridges near our house. Here is Trail 8 in Ta-ken, now redone with those odious, unsafe logs all the way to the top from the little wooden bridge at the base of the peak. Sucks. It's so easy to blow out a knee or twist an ankle if your foot slips between them.
As we were walking up the path across a large mass of concrete that served as both sidewalk and retaining wall, my son noted a huge spider sitting on the concrete, unmoving. "Is it dead?"
"Maybe...." I said.
Then I saw the wasp.
"Nope! Paralyzed."
We watched as the wasp flew in, grabbed the still feebly moving spider, and tried to pull it into a drainage hole in the concrete further down.
Unfortunately it dropped the spider about 4 meters down the concrete face. It flew down to retrieve it....
....and I shot this video of the wasp dragging the spider, much larger than itself, back up the nearly sheer concrete face and onto the path again. For some reason known only to itself, it insisted on having the spider in that exact place on the path.
Eventually it would lose the hole, drop the spider again, and quarter the area for 15 minutes trying to find the hole. We left in the middle of the drama.
[Taiwan]
Wow, amazing photo and video. What camera did you use ?
ReplyDeleteDid you use a tripod ? Amazing ...
I used the Canon Powershot S5 IS. Its video capabilities are excellent. It also has a sound recorder that I frequently use in taping meetings, etc.
ReplyDeleteMichael
I love watching bugs fight each other...
ReplyDeleteYea, the video surprised me the most. Can it do unidirectional audio recording ?
ReplyDeletewhat an interesting scene with the wasp and spider, that wasp crawled backwards very well i was amused :P
ReplyDeleteI love the moment when a younger member of the entourage says "that's so cool" will genuine expression. In my aspirations, I am father who also drags his children on long seemingly pointless walks (my mum did when i was young) until the time when my children suddenly realise why it's actually really cool to go out there and connect with the physical world around you, rather than choosing to become yet another socially retarded Zhainan ;). It can be done! Inspiration indeed. oh and, as always, great pics and video ... *bowing*
ReplyDelete