Again, I ventured out into my garden after a shower of rain and the atmosphere was uncomfortably sticky and humid but it’s worth it to see the garden guests who emerge in the freshly soaked foliage.

I have seen lots of these curled up leaves in the garden and was intrigued as to how they got there and I suspected that they had been constructed by some kind of clever critter.

The clever critter who constructed this is called a leaf-curling spider and what a ingenious use of natural resources for a camouflaged place of shelter!

The Leaf-curling spiders (genus Phonognatha) are orb-weaving spiders that add extra protection to their webs. They hoist a leaf from the ground and, using silk threads, curl it and seal it to form a protective cylinder. They then sit in this cylinder with only their legs showing, feeling for the vibrations of a captured insect. The curled leaf protects them from birds and parasitic wasps. Sometimes other objects, such as snail shells (which come ready-curled), are used. A male takes up residence in an immature female’s web, living at the upper end of the curled leaf. He mates with the female as soon as she matures. The female lays her eggs within another curled leaf, which is silked up and hung in the foliage away from the web.

from Wildlife of Sydney Fact File

Rain Drops on allamanda flowers

l to r: bristle fly and some kind of beetle (dung?)

Lots of tiny butterflies were also chasing each other and speeding around the garden and occasionally landing for a split second – this orange palmdart decided to stick around for a bit longer on a dandelion seed.

I peeked into my next door neighbour’s garden and saw the most beautiful flower all by itself in amongst ferns so I couldn’t resist taking a few photographs and I will need to find out what it is.