Mad Englishmen and sundogs

Of all the days to leave the department as the sun is setting and to spot, on the horizon a small rainbow patch of light in the form of a shimmering sundog, it happened to be the day that I left my camera at home.

This happens rarely and as I had left the house yesterday morning I had thought to myself that perhaps through some twist of fate, something photoworthy was bound to reveal itself. Anyway, the good news is that since learning more about atmospheric optics, I've seen a wealth of interesting effects here in Santiago, and winter should be the best time for ice halos and sundogs. I'll be keeping an eye out and will post whatever I manage to capture on film.

On Sunday afternoon I went back to the Alameda to see what beasts I could discover and came across this rather fine Vapourer, the larval stage of a Tussock moth.

Arachnids of various varieties seem to be in abundance right now too, and as the wind wasn't blowing too hard it made it possible to get some shots of this one in detail. If anyone has details about this spider, I'd be interested to know:

Click on the photos for larger versions still ;-)