the struggle for life

I am blessed in having a small patch of garden I can call my own.  And even more blessed and privileged to observe the goings on within it.

In what looks like a fairly benign space with flowers and small trees, there is a very real struggle for life going on.  A proper food chain with predators and the predated, sometimes at almost microscopic levels!

Take these two shots for instance - a spider eating a wasp and a greenfly caught on a derelict spider's web both captured with my Olympus OM-D E-M1 mark 2 and OM System 90mm f3.5 macro lens (a truly remarkable piece of glass):

1/125th of a second at f11, ISO 200
handheld

1/640th of a second at f5.6, ISO 200
handheld

When my wife saw the second shot, she said that our "circus" of a home was now complete, with a tightrope walking insect joining the performing dogs, a trapeze artist budgie and a clown.  Though I have no idea who she's referring to with the latter...