Friday, October 30, 2009

Goodbye, Charlotte.






I watched the spider build a large web on my back deck, connecting her silky threads from the roof to the rails on my deck. When I first saw the small webs here and there on my deck, I was annoyed. I have had Black Widows before and I thought the webs looked messy like a Black Widow makes a web. I took my hose and sprayed the webs to clear them whenever I had visitors who would use the deck. I hadn't seen the Orb Weaver until mid-summer. She was light yellow and BIG. She had weaved a large orb web and was now proudly in the middle, undulating in the wind. By late summer, she had captured many insects and had feasted so that she was as large as a nickel. She's wrapped numerous insects for later consumption. She'd laid her eggs in a softly woven egg sac under the eaves of my home. My husband was not impressed. "Kill it!" he said. I told him that he'd better not touch her. She was harmless and quite beautiful. Last Monday, we got a dusting of snow. She curled up into the corner of my deck roof. I took some pictures and thought she won't make it. On Wednesday, the weather turned to the teens and 5 inches of snow fell. Now she looked definitely spent. I took a final picture. I found out she was a Cat-Faced Spider from the web:http://www.spiderwebwatch.org/spiders/Araneus_gemmoides I thought of Charolotte in Charlotte's Web. I hope to see your baby spiderlings in the Spring!