Why I like brown widows...

Here's an example of why I kind of like brown widows, and will usually leave them alone when I spot them outside my place...

Spider Season 2011

Other places have deer hunting season, tulip season, school season, the holiday season or hummingbird season. What do we have at my house? We have "spider season".

Spider season runs about February through September, with the height of the season seeming to be around July.

So this morning I was about to open the front door when I thought to myself, "I better pound on the door to warn any spiders that I'm coming through, in hopes that they'll run away." I've done this a few times before, and once there was indeed a spider on the other side when I opened the door.

So today I pounded twice at the top of the door and once at the bottom. Then I opened the door, and found this...

Yeah...that's what I need as I'm trying to go out the door for work. Big boy, and instead of going out he started coming further in. So, I wound up having to spray him and then swept him out. Just to give you a little more perspective, here's his body (legs curled up) in comparison to my size 7 foot.

 

I really hate killing them. I don't want them dead. I just want them away from me and not in my home!

So that is two spiders of that size and one half their size in the last month. Yay. It's spider season-- my favorite time of the year.

Wolf vs Widow

The other day, I was being tormented by a seven-legged wolf spider in my front entrance. It had been there for a couple of days. I don't like killing things unnecessarily, so I had been leaving it alone, in hopes that it would MOVE ALONG! Unfortunately it did NOT move along.

So when I went to leave for work on Monday, I just knew I was going to have to face the wolf spider once more when I walked out my front door. So I went through my regular routine: broom in hand, slowly open front door, tapping it with the broom so that the vibration will go through the door and warn any spiders on the other side that I am coming through, creak the door open slowly, look to the right around the door frame and assure myself that no spiders are there, look through the crack of the door hinge area to assure myself that no spiders are in that area, step into the front screened area and look around the outside of the door to assure myself that no spiders are on the front of the door or anywhere in the room, and open the front screened door to make sure that none are hiding on the other side of it (we have opened the screen door on a number of occasions to find a wolf spider sitting on the other side). I have to go through this routine EVERY day!

So on Monday I began my routine, but just after opening the door I spotted this...


This was across from the front door, next to the screened door. I recognized the crumpled form of a dead wolf spider hanging in some webbing. I got my camera and got in closer for a pic. Then I noticed something. Take a closer look at that picture above. Down below, don't you notice what appear to be two thinner legs sticking out from the dead wolf spider? I recognized these legs. These are the thin striped legs of a brown widow.

So, the wolf spider had gotten caught in the webbing of the brown widow, and the widow had taken care of the wolf spider for me!

When I went to leave the house, I opened the screen door, and the vibration caused the widow to dart into her little webbed hideaway...


When I came home yesterday, I got a shot of her hiding in there. You can see the red of the hourglass on her belly...

I knew there was a reason that I keep brown widows around! They will eat wolf spiders! (You may remember that I've had a number of run ins with brown widows like on my trash cans - TWICE - and I even got video of one with a caterpillar.) I may have to let this girl stay here for awhile. I just won't be able to let the cats out onto this front porch while she's around!

Roll Over and Play Dead!

Remember the other day when I found this at my front entrance?
A spider just laying on its side after I opened the front door? I said that day that I was left with a conundrum when I came home after work to find it gone. And how strange it was that it was laying on it's side with it's legs stretched out like that. Not rolled up in a little ball, like they usually are when they die.

Well today I came home from work, closed my screen door and looked down and saw this...
There he is again, sitting in the filthy corner of my front entrance. And do you see the way his eye is glowing in the image? *shiver*

I yelled out to Woodrow to come see the big spider. He asked whether I wanted to kill it or scoot it out. I told him that I definitely didn't want to kill it if I didn't have to. So we grabbed a cover to a stack of CDs and some cardboard.

When Woodrow dropped the cover over him and scooted him out from the wall, he fell onto his back and just played dead.


Woodrow got him flipped back over when putting the cardboard under the spider, and Fred (we call all spiders Fred) moved a little to confirm he was indeed alive.

Here is a quick video of Fred while he was contained.


Then we walked him across the street and let him go near the storm drain, in some tall grass.


*sigh* Why do these spiders seek me out? I'm terrified of spiders, and it seems to amuse them to freak me out. Now the real question is: Since when do spiders play dead? I've never seen such a thing. Anyone ever heard of a spider playing dead?

The Spider Conundrum

This morning, as I left through my front screened entrance, I did my routine check of the room, always on the lookout for giant spiders or attacking palmetto bugs (I've encountered both). So first I spotted this three-legged lubber.

How he got in that room when the screened door was closed, I haven't a clue. He is about 2 1/2 inches long. So I don't know how he would have fit through the small crack where the door closes. Maybe there is a tear in some screening that I've missed?

I locked the front door and turned around and opened the screened door, and this is what I was greeted with...

What is that? A giant spider (wolf spider, I gather). To the left of it is a small caterpillar.

Here's a closer shot of the spider...

(It was probably about 1 1/2-2 inches in diameter.)

What's up with that? What happened here? Did this spider just keel over dead of old age or something? I thought maybe it got into some residual bug spray (I think Woodrow sprayed a large spider around the front door a few months ago, as it returned a few hours after having been swept outside with a broom.) However normally when spiders are poisoned, they curl up into a little defensive ball. Look at this guy! It's as if he is reaching out with his front legs.

When I came home, both he and the caterpillar were gone. Woodrow tells me that when he went out the front door today, there was no spider by the front door.

So what happened here? Could it be that the spider wasn't really dead? Maybe he was temporarily paralyzed? Maybe he tried to eat something that poisoned him, froze with paralysis, and then came to and ran off later? What about that caterpillar? Where did it go?

Or maybe a bird spotted the spider and caterpillar there and snagged them for a mid-morning snack?

It's a conundrum that still has me stumped tonight.

The Widows, Part Deux

The saga with the brown widows continue. I arrived home the other day to find a brown widow climbing up the front of the trash can, weaving her webbing.

It was time to move the can to the road, as garbage pickup was the next day. So I decided that I would need to move the girl. I had already removed her egg sac a few days before and disposed of it. Now I could see that she had plans to lay more.

So I grabbed a broom and moved her to the Bismarck Palm in my yard (it was raining at the time, so I knew she needed some shelter.)

Then I put the trash can out to the road. The next morning I saw the can sitting upside down at the end of the driveway, and planned on picking it up after work (I was in a hurry).

When I got home, I found that Woodrow had brought the can up, and sitting next to it was this...

A dead brown widow (see the hourglass on the belly). Evidently there were more than one. Woodrow said that when he went to grab the can, he found another eggsac where I'd removed one just days before, and a widow with it. There she is. He sprayed both her and the eggsac.

I'm being overrun with widows!

The Return of the Widows

Yesterday we were on our way out, when I spotted a large spider under the handle of the garbage can outside. I took a closer look and saw this...
This looks to me to be a brown widow. I've spotted them around my place in the past, and even got video last year. They seem to be quite prevalent around my yard, and I have to be extra careful when in the garage. They are not aggressive by nature, but they will bite if you accidentally "squish" them when grabbing something. I'm always especially careful of picking up containers that have a "lip" that they can hide under.

This little lady looks to me to be very pregnant, so I'm guessing she's about to lay an egg sac under the handle of the garbage can. I have to figure out what to do with this old girl, and where I could maybe relocate her. Hmmmmmm....

Spider Terror

You know how I'm always being terrorized by spiders? Well, this was the latest...


This lovely guy was waiting at the bottom of the door for me when I opened it to leave the other morning. We swept it outside. Woodrow told me that he wound up killing it later, as the spider was waiting a few hours later in front of the screened door, and he knew that it would keep returning. :( Poor spider...

I believe that this was a wolf spider. They are hunters. So they go out seeking prey, and often find themselves around the front of my house while they hunt. Ugh!

Spiders love me and my house

We all know just how much I love spiders, and how taking pics of them is sort of therapeutic in helping me face my fears. So here's my spider update.

For the last week or so, this guy has taken up residence in my entrance.


He's been coming out at night over the screen door. Then a few days ago he moved to the upper corner over the door. Now this morning I found him right next to the door when I left this morn.


Nice.

And this morning I, with my animalistic alertness, noticed that there was something in the hinge area of the front door. I took a closer look and spotted this.


That would appear to be another brown widow. This unfortunate one seems to have run in the door as it was closing and got squished. Poor 'ole guy/gal. Glad it didn't get inside though. I'll leave them alone outside, but if they get inside I will have to try to get them to go out or be forced to kill them. Too risky letting brown widows stay inside.

The real bad one right now is the big spider that camps out on the walkway at night. I think it is hunting the insects attracted by the outside lights.

Okay. I'm done. Therapy time is up. I feel better now.

Little Miss Muffet better not sit on THAT tuffet!

This morning, while leaving for work, I opened my front door to the front screened entrance. And I-- being afraid of spiders in general, but especially big, fast ones like wolf spiders-- made my usual visual inspection to determine whether there were any wolf spiders that were about to surprise me. Instead I spotted this:

This spider had a caterpillar, and the caterpillar was still alive and wiggling. I got some video footage of it. Sorry about the shaking at the end. I tried to zoom out, and then found it was fuzzy and couldn't get it to focus again.

I felt bad for the caterpillar, but that is nature. The spider must eat.

After awhile the spider moved off of the caterpillar and hung to the side. I got some pics of it.

Do you see what I see?

Isn't that a red hourglass on it's belly? I do believe that is a Brown Widow. However she was quite large. I would say she was about an inch in diameter. I finally decided that she had to go, as she was right by my screen door I have to go in and out of everyday. I avoid killing whenever possible, so I swept her outside.

However I also got a shot of this guy, too. This one has been hanging out on the ledge for a couple of weeks.

Then while looking back through my photos, I realized...

...this is another widow! I don't know how well you can tell in these little photos, but when you see the full res photos you can clearly see the reddish hourglass.

The last couple of weeks, I've noticed this wispy and messy webbing taking over around my place.

Now I know what is making this. I have a widow infestation, and they are building these webs around in my screened areas. There's more around my bird's cage. Hopefully THAT won't become a problem.

After looking up info about brown widows, I saw a pic of their egg sacs, and a light bulb went off. Wait a minute. Is that what I saw around my garage door the other day? So when I got home today, I got some pics around the garage door.



I don't know about you, but I think those are brown widow egg sacs. At least a dozen of them around my garage door. 80 eggs per sac. That's a lotta widows!

You think you had a bad day?

Just be glad you aren't this poor guy.


He's been next to our door at work for a couple of days. My guess is that a lizard tried to snag him, and he escaped short three legs. I don't know what his chances are now, because he'll have a hard time catching prey with so few legs on one side.

So if you got through today with all of your limbs, count yourself blessed!

Spider From H-E-double-toothpick

Woodrow and I have been tormented for months now by this spider that has taken up residence at the entrance to the sidewalk leading from the driveway to the front entrance. Did I mention that I have arachnophobia? Just to put things in perspective, this spider is about the diameter of a quarter, or about 1-inch in diameter. Click the image to see the full size image.

This thing creates a web every evening, and we live in fear of it. We try to get home every night before dark so that we don't have to deal with it. We haven't seen it for awhile, and thought we may finally be in the clear, since Woodrow came home after dark one night and accidentally walked through the web, causing the spider to land on his arm. He evidently proceeded (according to his description, as I was safely tucked away inside the house and did not witness "the encounter") to drop everything to the ground and spin around in circles while flapping his arms, trying to disengage the spider. We haven't seen the spider since that night (several weeks ago), and we figured that she had decided after her wild ride on Woodrow that perhaps this wasn't such a good spot for a web.

Then we came home after dark last night. We were fixated on the crab spider that has taken up residence at night over the garage. I'm always freaked out by how fast they are. Usually the gecko hangs out in this spot, too (the other night both the gecko and the crab spider were there), but I think the spider scared him off, as he wasn't around last night!

Then as we walked up to the house, we spotted the orb weaver on it's web next to the sidewalk. Of course, we have to determine that it's web is not crossing the sidewalk, so that we can walk by and get in the house. I stop and get a picture or two of the spider, and then Woodrow goes out and uses his Nikon to get some better shots of it for me. Go here or here to learn more about the Tropical Orb Weaver.

I'm telling you, we are hostages to the spiders! They totally freak out both of us, me more so than him. I'm constantly scanning the area for spiders, whether inside or out. A few months ago, we were going out and I walked out the front door and was locking the door when I looked down and saw a wolf spider next to my foot. It was about the size of a half-dollar. That's a nice surprise when you walk out your front door!

A couple of months ago I was getting a picture of my first Plumeria bloom that was coming in. While getting shots, I looked up and saw this not 6 inches from my face...


Nice!


Keep in mind that those branches are about an inch thick, just to give you some perspective.

I've often told people, "You know that a spider is big when it leaps off the wall, hits the floor running, and you can hear the *tick* *tick* *tick* of it's feet as it runs across the linoleum!" True story. That really happened to my mother and I when I was a teenager. After she had killed it the two of us proceeded to freak out and say, "Did you hear it's feet as it ran across the floor?!!"

Moral of the story: If you have arachnophobia, stay the heck away from Florida!

Now if I can only get a garage door opener installed, I can drive directly into the garage at night and no longer have to deal with spider webs spread across the sidewalk...