Ah, autumn
Sep. 27th, 2015 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fufarawWhen the temperatures start to drop consistently, it's time for the resident spiders to prepare for winter. The row of dwarf arbor vitae between us and and the neighbor is cluttered with webs, as are the cedars behind our house. Sturdy individuals depend from every eave and gutter, and harvesting herbs is a guaranteed up close and personal encounter. All these lovelies are the tiger-striped garden spiders, classic in shape and proportion. All are hunting for whatever last sustenance they can find before mating--the males with an almost sure chance of being eaten, the females getting ready to cocoon themselves over the winter with their eggs, which will hatch in early spring and consume her body to fuel their break for freedom as the weather warms.
But the webs gleaming in the sun are artworks, flat planes set at subtly varying angles so that it's like a spaceship threading orbits of satellites around a giant planet. Each spider crouches in the center of its own web, reacting instantly when something touches its web--and often, its neighbors' webs. Spider watching can be similar to a soap opera. I just spent twenty minutes observing a smaller speciman, I assume a male, inching carefully onto the web of a larger neighbor--I assume a female. Slowly he advances, carefully he places his feets--twelve inches, eight, six, and...he stops less than two inches from her and waves his forefeet enticingly. She waits, immobile, until he gets close enough to tap her--and she pounces at him! He quickly scurries away, and she backs up to the high margin of her web, leaving the center invisible without her, a trap in the open air. He tucks under a cross member of the trellis, to plan his next attack, or if she succeeded in biting him, to slowly succumb.
Engrossed in the pair, I didn't notice when the sun moved, highlighting a dozen and more gleaming webs, and their proprietors, basking, and awaiting the next meal.
As it cools toward frost, they'll all disappear, until one morning the sun won't find a single web, not until sunrise some late spring morning.
But the webs gleaming in the sun are artworks, flat planes set at subtly varying angles so that it's like a spaceship threading orbits of satellites around a giant planet. Each spider crouches in the center of its own web, reacting instantly when something touches its web--and often, its neighbors' webs. Spider watching can be similar to a soap opera. I just spent twenty minutes observing a smaller speciman, I assume a male, inching carefully onto the web of a larger neighbor--I assume a female. Slowly he advances, carefully he places his feets--twelve inches, eight, six, and...he stops less than two inches from her and waves his forefeet enticingly. She waits, immobile, until he gets close enough to tap her--and she pounces at him! He quickly scurries away, and she backs up to the high margin of her web, leaving the center invisible without her, a trap in the open air. He tucks under a cross member of the trellis, to plan his next attack, or if she succeeded in biting him, to slowly succumb.
Engrossed in the pair, I didn't notice when the sun moved, highlighting a dozen and more gleaming webs, and their proprietors, basking, and awaiting the next meal.
As it cools toward frost, they'll all disappear, until one morning the sun won't find a single web, not until sunrise some late spring morning.
