The Two Sides of Larinia Directa

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 032014
 

For the past few days, every time I have walked down Piney Woods Church Road, I have encountered orb spiders dutifully tending their webs.  I never see the same web or spider twice — each time, I discover a different one somewhere along the roadside.  All of them, though, are clearly the same spider species:  Larinia directa.  Today, for the first time, I was able to photograph a spider in her web from both sides, top and bottom.  It is an accomplishment about which I am quite proud, though mostly it was the luck of finding a spider whose web allowed fairly easy approach from both directions — from the roadside and from the roadside slope, looking back toward the road bed.

 

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Found Arrowhead

 Backyard Nature, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Oct 132014
 

I found this Arrowhead Spider (Verrucosa arenata) almost immediately upon arriving at Piney Woods Church Road this morning, resting head-up (the only local orb-weaving spider that does so) in the midst of her large web, whose center was at the height of the top of my head.  The Arrowhead is fast becoming one of my favorite of Georgia’s many colorful spiders.  Like all other orb weavers, the Arrowhead Spider is harmless to humans.

 

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Argiope Aurantia, Front and Back

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Sep 042014
 

I know, yet another photograph of the Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)….  I was on Facebook yesterday, and saw an entire discussion thread loaded with everyone’s photos of this enormous spider.  I can understand why, of course — this spider is easily among the most dramatic and photogenic of our orb-weavers.  Practically no other spider in the Southeast approaches it in size, and its vivid yellow coloration is quite conspicuous against the greens and browns of a forest edge.  Then there is its huge web, with its carefully-stitched “zipper” that helps to prevent wayward birds from crashing into it.

For a slightly different take on Argiope aurantia, I am including photographs of a moderately-sized female I saw along Piney Woods Church Road today, taken both from both the front and the back.  Her underside is not quite as visually stunning, but still imposing enough.  And this particular one was only an inch and a half across.

 

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Day 243: Terror on Piney Woods Church Road

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 312014
 

With an hour to spare before leaving for an afternoon workshop in Atlanta on Radical Mycology, I decided to set out for a late-morning stroll down Piney Woods Church Road.  I had not ventured far when I came upon the web of the most immense spider I have yet encountered on my walks:  a female Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia), easily two inches in length.  She is one of the most lovely of spiders, and I gratefully took a number of photographs of her.  Then I noticed a new wildflower blooming from an adjacent vine, and I bent down to take several shots of the small, purplish-white blooms.  It was then that I noticed my hands.

Both of them were covered, from fingertip to wrist, with tiny moving specks.  They weren’t biting — yet.  And they were so small that I could barely feel them on my skin.  I was seized with terror:  could these be chiggers?  There are few things I am terrified of in the Georgia forest — there is lightning, certainly, but otherwise, chiggers top my list.  I frantically rubbed my hands together , trying to free them from me before they could clamber higher up my arms.  Even now, as I type this, having sprayed my hands with bleach and rinsed them with soapy water, I still noticed a couple of the tiny specks on the move.

What is strange is that I am not clear how so many got onto my hands so quickly.  I did not place my hands in anything — so they must have fallen from the trees above or jumped collectively from a particular spot. Were they chiggers?  I suspect that I will learn that soon enough.

The spider is beautiful, and quite harmless, unless you are an insect that happens into her web.

 

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Day 232: Spacewalk

 Backyard Nature, Geometry and Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 202014
 

I ventured out to Piney Woods Church Road this afternoon after an intense thunderstorm.  The air was delightfully cool, and thunder still rumbled overhead.  I found great delight, as I often do, in photographing droplets of water.  I was delighted to discover this one water droplet with a tiny spider, a few millimeters across, just below it, clinging to a slender thread.  I was reminded of an astronaut on a space walk above our blue-green sphere.

 

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Day 194: Crab Spider

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jul 132014
 

Today did not begin well. I heard a hissing in the wall behind the shower — the plumbing equivalent of discovering an unexpected lump somewhere on the body.  Instead of setting out at 9:15 am, when the temperature was a pleasant 74 degrees, I set out an hour and a quarter and a couple of telephone calls later, very much distracted.  For the first time in ages, I walked from one end of Piney Woods Church Road to the other without taking a single photograph, the Sun all the time climbing still higher in the sky.  On my return journey, I halfheartedly took a few photographs of brightly colored fallen laves on the road and backlit green leaves with shadows — nothing inspired, but something to fall back on if necessary.  I still felt no particular worry.  For 193 days, I had walked the same stretch of roadway, finding at least one moment of wonder every single time.  And today was no exception.

About halfway back to Rico Rd., I discovered this spider in the center of a huge web at head-height, oriented perpendicular to the road edge.  It is sometimes called the Crab Spider,, because it is shaped rather like a crab with paired spines along its abdomen.  According to Spiders of the Carolinas, it is actually a Spined Micrathena (Micrathena gracilis).  Like most all Georgia spiders, it is harmless to people, and can even be handled safely by its spines, though I am not clear why one would opt to do that.  It is an abundant spider of mixed open hardwoods, like the forest strip edging Piney Woods Church Road.

 

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The Lines Between

 Backyard Nature, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 292014
 

This photograph verges, perhaps, on excessive minimalism (if there is such a term), but I find it entrancing somehow.  Three spiderweb lines, ultimately connecting parts of a sweetgum leaf to each other, preserve the memory of previous journeys.  It seems fitting, somehow, to consider where I have gone, as I reach Day 180 and rapidly approach the halfway point in my own pilgrimage.

 

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Jumping Spider

 Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 272014
 

I took this photograph of a tiny jumping spider (family Salticidae), maybe a quarter of an inch across (if that), looking at me from atop a rail of a rusty fence gate.  A complete portrait eluded me — my subject was rather skittish.  I didn’t even bother glancing at my photo the first time through today’s shots, because even with my lens in macro mode, the spider was minute in my image.  I was amazed to find that it came out quite well, even after cropping practically the entire photograph away, just to get this close-up.  I love this spider’s eyes.

 

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Day 154: Surfing the Web

 Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 032014
 

We have now gone a couple of weeks without measurable rainfall, and folks are beginning to get uneasy.  Are we headed into another drought?  Meanwhile, dust covers everything along Piney Woods Church Road — dust that settles in clouds in the wake of each passing car or truck.  There is a sugary coating on the leaves of the roadside shrubs and saplings.  There is no water left anywhere — ditches, ruts, and potholes have long been dry.  For a photographer in a hurry, the road offers few opportunities.  Given only fifteen minutes — my situation today — I had only two viable choices:  daisies or spiders.  The daisy fleabane continues to bloom, propelled to continue by a sort of biological inertia, when most all other roadside weeds and trees are spent — at least, until the next rains come.  Pollinating bees and flies flock to the daisies, and some likely fall victim to the orchard orbweaver spiders that have set up shop at numerous locations along the roadway.  Their webs are elegant, among the finest instances of nature’s geometry.  For today, I settled for another spider image, this time a photograph depicting the spider as a sort of Master Controller at the center of its web, working the machinery of its own predatory impulses.  Tomorrow?  Maybe daisies again.  Or perhaps a sunset, red sky intensified by dust in the atmosphere. If only it would rain….

 

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