It turns out he's an Orb Weaver, a very genteel spider (so true), who doesn't bug anyone (haha) and minds his own business, stays outside, does his spider thing, and lives peacefully in the world. Even though spiders have always given me the heebie jeebies, I've come to respect them and not fear them. It's been a 180-degree attitude shift from my pre-homeowner life.
So. These bad boys are really abundant in the late summer... August or so? That picture above was taken in September. Anyway, on Sunday Shane called me outside to show me something "cool," and this is what we saw....
What is it? Orb spiderlings. All clung together in a tight little ball. The slightest disturbance scatters them. It was reeeeeally cool.
We did some googling and discovered they're only around for a few days... in fact this morning almost all of them are gone. We had 3-4 clusters of them in various spots around our house, so I've been checking on them for the last few days.
In fact, the big guy at the top of the blog post was probably the momma of these little babies. How sweet is that? I think I had read that as the summer goes on their abdomens get bigger and bigger and bigger... then in early fall they lay all their eggs and ride off into the spider sunset. I guess the eggs hang out all year and finally hatch now, mid-April. I guess by July or August we should have another resident in the same spot as last year's momma.
(Side note: there are currently all over the yard another breed of spider, little black guys that are FAST. I couldn't get a good enough picture of them, and I really don't know what they are. They've been EVERYWHERE in the last few weeks and are starting to disappear. I like them less because they do quite a bit of scurrying, but I haven't killed any and I just stay clear.)
I hate to say it, but pre-spider-tolerater Angela woulda probably taken the chance to um "mitigate" future spider risk by "neutralizing" the babies. So sad. These little guys are so very cool and I'm proud of myself that I embraced this part of nature.
I said to Shane that I thought it interesting we didn't notice the babies last year. I assumed that we were too busy and just missed it (I mean, they were only here for 5 days), but Shane also said that maybe the last owner wasn't as "friendly" to the Orb weavers as we were and so we had no babies. What a thought!
Spider babies in my yard. Awesome.
2 comments:
I assume that you are cool with them as long as they stay outside of your house?
These ones are nice. But yes, when they bigger I do want them outside.
I was outside for a little bit this morning and one hitched a ride on me. I saw him inside and instead of freaking out I calmly took him back outside. His little life musta flashed before his eyes! But he lived to tell the tale!
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