Happy Halloween

Here is a collection of spiders from around the house in celebration of Halloween.

Photo description: Garden Spider closeup. This girl is set up at the back of the house by the catio.
Photo description: the chunkiest high-eyelash jumping spider I have ever seen, hanging out on a metal gate.
Photo description: a different high-eyelash jumping spider hanging out on a different gate with a pretty abdomen pattern
Photo description: Orb Weaver Spider silhouette against a clear blue sky. She set up in the meadow and I was able to get under her high web for the photo.
Photo description: Scarlet Jumping Spider. This one is new to me, and he was hanging out on the metal gate. I love the way they look at me, calculating risk. I took many, many photos of him, trying to get the focus right. I didn’t quite get it sharp, but he was quite small.

Garage toad

I have a Gulf Coast toad living in my garage. I went to take out the trash and he was sitting in the middle of the floor, not caring about my movements at all. Usually he hops away from me, but not today.

Photo description: Gulf Coast Toad sitting on a concrete floor

It turns out that there were grubs under the trash bags. Here is a video of him eating one. I used to think he used the garage as home base and went outside to eat. I guess that isn’t always necessary. Good toad.

Tangled web

My front door grape vine experiment with hot glued glass pebbles and thin draping strands of hot glue caught a spider.

Photo description: Spotted Orb Weaver spider caught on strands of hot glue

I saw the spider as I was leaving the house and thought it odd that it was sitting there exposed. I pulled on some of the glue threads and it moved, so I gently pulled the threads away. It turns out the spider was tangled in the thin strands of plastic. When I pulled away enough of the elastic string, the spider mobilized and moved to a more protected area. I finished taking all the hot glue strands off the sculpture. I had no idea they were capable of entrapment.

Feather find

I found an interesting feather getting out of my car at home. It was a dark gray with iridescent bronze sheen, and white edges. A new-to-me feather. I took a picture and put it into the iNaturalist app. The AI identification was no use: “bird”. The community of real people, however, came back with the answer: roadrunner. Neat!

Photo description: found feather

We do have at least one pair of roadrunners that live in the area, so the identification makes sense. And it is molting season for most of the wild birds and my chickens, so the feather was most likely naturally shed, rather than the result of an attack.

Painted bunting

I added a bird to my list of sightings! We had a painted bunting visit our bird feeder. What a pretty bird!

Photo description: Painted Bunting perched on a rope

He was flirting with a female on the new bird feeder, and I love this photo where the female is getting after him and I caught him leaning away.

Photo description: female (left) and a male (right) painted bunting on a dragonfly decorated birdfeeder