Sunday, 21.11.2021
I thought I’d give a garden journal a try. My retirement coincided with a hard covid lockdown in South Africa at the end of March 2020. My garden has become very important in my life and I am trying to photograph everything I see and post them on iNat.

The highlight today was to watch two African Hoopoes, an adult and a juvenile. Both were foraging in the back garden. Despite the juvenile being quite successful the adult returned time and again to feed it. Other observations today:
A Southern Masked Weaver nest building.
Two Striped Ladybird Beetles; one with a single stripe, the other with three.
Ladybird Beetle larva are everywhere as well as their pupa.
A Leafhopper.
Two mantid nymphs.
Lacewing eggs.
A Masked Bee.
And all the usual garden birds.

Last month I got to spend some time closely watching a Flower Crab Spider. She was on a daisy flower. It was interesting to watch as she moved from flower to flower, sometimes patrolling the underside of a flower or moving up and down the stem. Over 23 days she had 13 meals, those being mainly flies and bees. Interesting to me was the presence of Jackal Flies when she caught a Bee. I only saw her miss a prey item once. I was able to observe and photograph a male, small and reddish in colour, mate with her; well that’s what I presumed was going on. Then one day she was just not present any longer.

An interesting article related to crab spider predation is:
https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/17/6/933/317264

Sunday 28.11.2021
A grey and wet week in the garden. I had 70 mm of rain in this week. It is summer in South Africa and Johannesburg is in a summer rainfall region so this is normal.

I recorded a number of little critters but of particular interest to me was:

• a striped ladybird beetle, Cheilomenes propinqua, that had just emerged from its pupa. It was pale cream with no stripes at all. I presume these were still to develop.
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101698133

• a first for me was a jumping spider with a prey item; a daddy longlegs spider, family Pholcidae.
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101750518

• A tropical tent-web spider, also a first for me. It was difficult to photograph as it was positioned close to the ground within a web that was an orb inside a three dimensional tangle of silk threads.
  https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/101995255

So an interesting week and I look forward to the next one with December just around the corner.