Sewing Machine Spider

[ad4mg]

This one built her web last night in the corner of my car port. Interesting spider, also called a writing spider, or a garden spider. Quite harmless. The picture turned out pretty decent ... no flash, about 6" away from the spider using the old F-717 Sony.

4709 <- click for larger image!

[K7SGJ]

Those are excellent cameras. The place I used to work was going to toss two of them because they weren't working, and they were given to me. I took them home, and a few months later my kid tells me he found out that Sony had a recall for a CCD problem with the units. I sent them in, ande both were fixed under warranty. For his effort, I gave the kid one of them. We recently sold them to get better cameras, but we sure used the hell out them. Although it sometimes made for a noisy photo, the night mode was fun to use.

[W3MIV]

Haven't seen a garden spider of any size around here in a long time. They used to be quite common hereabouts, and they would get quite large -- abdomen about an inch and a-half or so. They would often build their orbs across walkways and paths, and it was common to walk into them at night.

I believe the huge population of birds pestering my area -- especially robins (eat dirt and die, Rachel Carson!) has taken its toll on the spiders. We still have a fair population of brown orb-weavers (we call them "dock spiders" since they are so often found haunting piers in marinas), but damned few of the big, yellow and black garden arachnids.

[kc7jty]

(eat dirt and die, Rachel Carson!)
DDT in every pot.