Friday, September 14, 2007

Sorry, Charlotte

I apologized to a spider this afternoon, actually said 'Sorry.' She's built a web in a corner of the garage door, and if you don't remember, you're likely to run into it. Out in the yard, one of those big orange-and-black jobbies has constructed a large and lovely web between a mesquite and some flowers, but it's not in a place to run into. I stood out there day before yesterday and for ten or fifteen minutes watched her building. She makes the radial anchor strands running out from the center and then lays down concentric bands from the center out, exuding silk from her abdomen and guiding it into place with a hind leg. It's really neat to watch her working. The center of the web has the tiny, swaddled corpses of the careless and unlucky.

1 comment:

Sugar Magnolia said...

I know what you mean by the spider webs all around. I have never seen so many spiders and mushrooms as I have this summer. I suppose we can thank all the moisture for that. Those orb weavers really are fascinating, and they catch all manner of smaller insects, including grasshoppers, flies, and (although I am not quite sure), I would suppose mosquitoes.