a peek inside the fishbowl

25 Sep, 2008

up close and personal with your larger-than-average garden spider

Posted by andrea tomkins in: Photography

This guy is living in our front garden  :

garden spider

(Is that creepy or what?)

Partway through our photo session I decided to spray some mist on his web to see what kind of photo I could get.

web

It sure looked pretty. But wait! The spider suddenly started to move around. I prayed he was not some kind of jumping spider.

I leaned in (yes, LEANED!) to get a closer look and realized he was combing the water off of his body and drinking the droplets.

You’ll have to click on the image below to get all the, ahem, hairy details because I uploaded it full size.

spider drinks

Interesting to look at, but kind of gross all the same, isn’t it?

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5 Responses to "up close and personal with your larger-than-average garden spider"

1 | twinmomplusone

September 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

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ok, this is really freaky, cause just this morning, as I was walking the kids to the bus stop, we noticed a multitude of spiderwebs covered with morning dew. After they were off, I fetched my camera and snapped a whole lot of web and spider pictures…what a coincidence

2 | Renee

September 25th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

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Oh my goodness a relative of his lives in our garden and when I broke his/her web with my pitchfork, it GRABBED onto one of the times!!! YIKES! But better in my garden than in my house!

3 | porter

September 25th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

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Your photos are amazing.

I was pulling out our annuals yesterday (yes I was…sad summer is over) and there was a huge spider just like the guy in your pics who had attached his web from our house to our Japanese maple….he was the largest spider I’ve ever seen.

4 | LO

September 25th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

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very cool
loved the pics-you are good
BUT i do have the chilly willy feeling now…..:)
BTW I was ‘talking’ about you at THE Candy store today!!!
LOVE that place.
:)LO

5 | Sheila D

September 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

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I was at the National Gallery today and overheard two women saying “Yech, I don’t know what it is about spiders (in reference to Maman). It’s so gross and ugly. And the eggs. Yuck!.” (perhaps not an exact quote but you get my drift.) Sad. I had remarked to my hubby earlier how I loved that sculpture and its placement. These spiders in your garden and their webs are simply beautiful. Now, I’ll admit I’d probably jump if I found one on my arm. Thanks for posting your pics.

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