Heteropoda hauntings....

Well, doing some dusting last Friday ( ready for the week-end... in case.....) what should I come across but my little friend the Heteropoda, sitting comfortably on the wall above the front door.
Was it really the same arachnid as the one I photographed in the rain gauge some weeks ago now, or was it a cousin or even a sibling?
Had it followed me into our house, was it trying to tell me something? I left it alone of course, thinking it is quite safe inside.

 What should happen this morning though, when I lifted my hat off the table , there in a flurry of legs, frightening the daylight out of me with its sudden movement, was Heteropoda , looking somewhat stiff and undernourished when it stopped to look me in the eye.
I went and got my spider catching glass rectangle
and kept him captive for a while to take more photos of him.
Interestingly, my little Nikon Coolpix took better photos of it than my super duper Nikon 80.
It posed beautifully, standing on its eight legs
looking well.....like a spider. I took it outside afterwards and freed it into the Clivia patch near the Holm oak and hope it will find plenty to eat.

What was also a surprise and joy yesterday was seeing we still have the red water lily flowering in our pond.
I found the white faced heron standing on the pot the other morning gobbling up one of our goldfish. It doesn't matter a great deal as there are still about thirty goldfish left, but it is interesting  that the bird will take flight the moment we come into the kitchen but will stay when it knows there is something to eat in the pond.

 There is also a white waterlily and it is exquisite and so pristine in its whiteness.
The frogs are not as numerous as other years and that is because the goldfish will find all the frogspawn and gobble it up, so in a way I would be quite happy if the Heron eats all the goldfish......
We have had a very dry Spring and the hay was cut last Saturday which is quite early in the season .We are already watering some of our plants, especially the new roses.

This clump of gerberas is a surprise too, as I thought I had killed them when I sprayed the soursobs which had smothered the clump completely....
The garden is such a pleasure... the Blue tongue lizard yesterday, was able to find shelter in the Kiss-me-quicks by the Studio wall, as the wattlebird was attacking it , not sure why a wattle bird would tackle it, as a lizard does not climb tree.......The Tawny Frogmouth has hatched its young also, two chicks possibly, and the Greenies are building a new nest in the patio vines, this will be their second batch of chicks, the first lot fledged two weeks ago......