courting spiders 2

Stopped home for lunch and one of my colleagues spotted movement on an angle grinder blade laying on my lawn by the patio doors (my house is still unfinished!) and was enthralled by what he saw, he thought the dancing spider was hilarious!! :-)
The dancing is of course a mating ritual that the males take great care to perform in order to let the females know they are not in fact 'Lunch'!! the Male is on the left and by the time I got to see him through my lens his legs were vibrating to the point of invisibility, there is - I assume, a fine mat of spider silk that the female has laid out as a trap and this is how he attracts her attention. As soon as she shows up (and she does so at great speed!) he starts to wave his big black palps like Tony Manero (John Travolta) in Saturday Night Fever :-))
Seriously cute, I was watching this for at least half an hour. as far as I know our romeo was unsuccessful in his love making but also remained in tact :-)

This is not something you will come across 'in the wild' very often so I think I've been very lucky.Also, I can't help but think these guy's knew I was watching, they were definitely aware of my presence and certainly reacted to the movement of my lens despite all my efforts to remain still :-))