Leucauge argyra spiders are pretty, shimmery spiders. They spin horizontal webs in the weeds, on bushes, and elsewhere, and hang upside-down beneath them.

That left me two options while trying to photograph the top of the spider: lie down under the web, or grab a spider. Gulp. Which would you do?

Humm... that won't do. I forgot the light. Darn! you know what that means.

Reaching out... going for it... (holding breath)

The problem is, once in my hand, the spider kept trying to leave. Neither of us was happy with the situation.

Finally, the spider paused and glared at me, and I got a nice picture of it while I glared back. That wasn't so bad, and I didn't get a spider bite (phew!)

There are lots of these orchard spiders in my yard, and every one I looked at was a little different. Here's a better look at the back of that 'get under the web' spider:

My spiders all had a vase shape black pattern on their back, sort of like a bottomless big U resting above a little u with a divided circle underneath. The yellow varied a lot.

When I tried to peer at the underside of my orchard spiders, which should have been simple given the way they hang under their easy to reach webs, they kept running away from me.

I scooped this Leucauge argyra spider up with a branch, and put it on a lawn chair to photograph.

See how green it's legs are?