In yesterday’s comments, Judy posted that she was sad to not have seen many spiders lately. Well, I have not seen that many webs or spiders either this season. Currently, I am reading a fascinating book on spiders. Its title is “Spider Communication, Mechanisms and Ecological Significance” edited by Witt and Rovner. The book is a collection of scientific papers about spider communications, behavior, and ecology. It is a fairly technical book so it is slow going for me. Amazing creatures! Anyway, Judy comment sent me looking specifically for spiders today. 🙂
First spider! And it did not want to be photographed. So it quickly climbed up its line!
Next, a Nursery Web Spider (Pisauridae), perhaps in the genus of Fishing Spiders (Dolomedes). I spotted it moving in the leaf litter.
As I watched the ground for movement, I found these remains. Certainly looks like some arrangement I would make, but in fact, no. LOL
Next, a very tiny orbweaver spider. In fact it was only about three millimeters.
A dew covered cardinal feather!
Another Orbweaver!
Checking multiple plants of the Snow-on-the-prairie (Euphoria bicolor), again no spiders this morning there.
Interesting how the seeds form to the side of the flower.
So no spiders on the Yellow Ground Cherry (Physalis cinarescens) either.
None on the Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis).
A funnel spider’s home. However no one answered when I rang its “doorbell”. I did this by jiggling a leaf on the edge of the web.
Another house in the neighborhood. This time the funnel spider answered the door. She might wished she had put up a sign that said no solicitors. Thus that was my spiders for the day. 🙂
The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know.
8 Comments
Im happy you found spiders but looks like not a lot. The moon was outstanding last night. Looking forward to tonights. Thanks for searching for spiders. The worm blogs are certainly different.
Some years there are huge numbers of orbweavers and you run into webs everywhere. Then you don’t see them for years. I haven’t seen many web type spiders. I do see more ground spiders like wolf and jumping. And a huge number of brown recluse both down at our horse barn and in our cabin. And I have been pursuing a black widow behind our cabin but she keeps escaping. Only seen a couple crab spiders. I figure the drought we have had meant less prey so we have had less spiders. We did have zero mosquitos untill these rains and now we have them and flies. I’ve tried knocking on funnel spiders’ doors but I never get answers.
I have not seen as many spiders over the past few years. The ballooning spiders that catch on the fences used to be thick when they came thru, no more. In addition, no stick to clear our path (prevents a face full of web) when walking. We even try to go around them if we can.
We have had a nice year for jumping spiders in our yard and the first funnel web spider we’ve seen in the yard yet. A few banana spiders but mostly in backyard instead of in front garden. Also a new species for us, the basilica dome spider, in large numbers along the trellis. Ours is probably difficult to tell about overall population though because locally (in our yard) habitat is improving though it’s probably not in the general region.
Im happy you found spiders but looks like not a lot. The moon was outstanding last night. Looking forward to tonights. Thanks for searching for spiders. The worm blogs are certainly different.
Not a lot. It must be cool to find new cave creatures, but you will never find me wanting to go spelunking 🙂
Some years there are huge numbers of orbweavers and you run into webs everywhere. Then you don’t see them for years. I haven’t seen many web type spiders. I do see more ground spiders like wolf and jumping. And a huge number of brown recluse both down at our horse barn and in our cabin. And I have been pursuing a black widow behind our cabin but she keeps escaping. Only seen a couple crab spiders. I figure the drought we have had meant less prey so we have had less spiders. We did have zero mosquitos untill these rains and now we have them and flies. I’ve tried knocking on funnel spiders’ doors but I never get answers.
I have not seen as many spiders over the past few years. The ballooning spiders that catch on the fences used to be thick when they came thru, no more. In addition, no stick to clear our path (prevents a face full of web) when walking. We even try to go around them if we can.
I enjoyed your yard tour. Wish you’d found more spiders though.
Me too. 🙁
We have had a nice year for jumping spiders in our yard and the first funnel web spider we’ve seen in the yard yet. A few banana spiders but mostly in backyard instead of in front garden. Also a new species for us, the basilica dome spider, in large numbers along the trellis. Ours is probably difficult to tell about overall population though because locally (in our yard) habitat is improving though it’s probably not in the general region.
One spot (ie your yard) is an improvement I am certain all the critters thank you!