3 Oct 2015

And Then, A Further Portent….

Further to the usual observation of the berry barometer to give me some idea of what kind of winter I may expect, have you, like me, noticed the frantic feeding and food trapping the garden spiders have been engaged in since about the last week of August?

Of a morning, if I step into the garden, within three steps I'm coated in spider webs of wonder. How these fellows get a web spun between two points four feet apart, at face level, and spookier still, get it rebuilt in mere moments if I walk through one, is a whole different subject but I do feel that if I stood still for a period after encountering the first web, I'd be bitten to sleep, bagged and dragged into storage in pretty short measure. How cool would that be for a post! Assuming I escaped of course.

I honestly don't remember seeing so many of these guys spinning and trapping on this level before. However, that was just typed by an old guy who can't remember what he had for lunch today.

Is this eating and storing frenzy a portent of a savage winter to come? Has some sort of 'this winter's gonna be a doozy' instinct kicked in? Or are these guys just going nuts only in our garden? Is there a computer climate model that takes spider activity into consideration or do I need to kick one off? Would there be grant money available? Man, it always comes back to money does it not?

Quote;  Dave Barry.

“Spiders so large they appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.”

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