Tuesday 3 September 2013

Vignette - A Titanic Invertebrate Battle

Flappings at the kitchen window last night...

 
 ...this unfortunate fellow, a large yellow underwing, had been having a rare old flap against the kitchen window. I went outside to take a photograph, and just after I did so, it bumbled around the window sill, and went straight into a small tangle of spider's webs in the corner of the window frame; a dark, evil corner.

And so it proved to be. Seconds after, an extremely fast moving spider pounced like a funnel web from the frame, and was on the moth in less than a second. The moth fluttered away, but the sticky webs held it in its graps, and it was dragged back down to ground. The spider leapt in a second time, and jumped on the terrified moth's back. 

I managed to free the moth at this point - who says nature photographers shouldn't interfere? - but, I was too late. The moth took to the air for a brief time, before the paralysing toxin took effect and the moth silently fell away, out of sight in the dark.

"Nature red in tooth and claw" as Chris Packham always says, but I was sad for the moth, and happy that the spider wasn't getting any dinner in their parlour that night.

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