Surviving the Heat

For the last 3 days we've been sweltering in heatwave conditions over here. It's been 43 and 44 deg. C. in the shade every day.  It's surprising though just how much wildlife there is around.  I found a really interesting-looking spider this morning which had made a massive web between two water butts :-

I don't know the name of this spider (maybe someone out there does?), but I call it a scribble spider because they always have a scribbly bit above and below where they sit on the web.

(Apparently, it's an argiope spider - thanks Ken!)

Then this little charmer came to have a look at me while I was watering the garden :-

There were lots of green preying mantis amongst the grass, and this one was the same colour as the house wall :-

Oh, and then this character turned up to see what I was doing :-

It's a hard life!

Luckily, he didn't notice the preying mantis, otherwise he'd have eaten them - nice juicy little snacks!