In the fog and mist, Creighton was wowed by the white stuff in his yard – not frost, certainly not snow – and wondered:
Ever see anything like this? My wife and I walked out into our back yard this morning and found the fog deposited dew on what appears to be spider webs covering our entire back yard. I’m impressed at the industriousness of a spider that could do all this overnight. Aside from being a wonderfully spooky Halloween yard is this common around here?
Closer look:
Not to freak you out or anything, but you’ve got a little more than one spider in your yard.
this might help: Early some sunny morning, look across the grass and you’ll see a carpet of fine silk threads. Young ballooning spiders make this carpet. They climb up to the top of the grass and send threads of silk into the air. The wind blows these threads and spiders away. They spin more, more, and more thread as they travel. They can go without food for months.
Exceptionally creepy. When was the last time you walked through your yard? It appears there is one path running across it, perhaps from a visit from nighttime fauna? I think I am going to have nightmares.
In fact, I have seen something like this… early this morning in my neighbors’ yards! I took some photos of the webs in our yard, and then walked around the block to “oooh” and “aahhh” at the rest of the dew-covered sights. Very cool photo!
Wow! Cool. Thanks for sharing these amazing pictures. In our front garden today, as I left for work I discovered we had complete, beautiful spider webs woven in the branches of our bamboo (particularly the bald branches, where some of the culms died) and within and between other plants. I was thrilled since I’d been trying to decide if I wanted to decorate for Halloween and it now looks as if I have decorated, quite creatively. Spiders are incredible!
I’ve seen something similar in our yard, as well as neighbors’ yards. We *do* have a metric asston of spiders, but is anyone SURE that’s what it is?
I think it’s quite pretty.
i would rather them be across my grass like this than spun across my front door… right at face height. Many mornings I start my day with a spider web to the face. I feel like they are going bonkers this time of year
I love spiders, and the West Seattle Blog community. Hooray for a little seasonal science education!
Spider Ballooning 101:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)
A more impressive phenomenon in BC:
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animals/millions_of_tiny_spiders.htm
We had a less impressive but similar display a few weeks ago. And to date we haven’t been overtaken by the spiders.
Wow, love those webs! We had a very picture perfect web on our stair railing this am -looked like a “fake” it was so beautiful and dewy.
This explains all the webs on my tiny maple tree. I have never seen so many. It’s as if they just webbed each arm perfectly.
No information to offer, but thanks to SpiderWoman for her info, and to Creighton for sharing this. Very lovely and magical!
That is so neat! I have a bunch of spiders living outside my apartment… One is a BIG guy that lives in my front doorway, and another lives outside one of my windows so I watch it build and clean its web, know where it sleeps, etc. They are such amazing animals, watching them has given me newfound spider respect.
Whoa! I thought it was very trippy when I was walking to the bus stop near Holden and Delridge in the early,dewy morn of the 20th. At first, I thought someone strung some fine string along the trees to other trees. Then I noticed the “fine string” again and again but this time noticed these great”typical” spider webs near them. They glistened in the morning light and dew. I started to get a bit creeped out for a moment when I saw way too many for my comfort level, but also wondered “gee, have they’ve always been here and never noticed them? Or is something weird going on? Are we being slowly encased by the arachnids a la the cheesy 70s movie where that small town eventually got all covered in one bigass web?!” But alas I saw the beauty nature can make albeit creepy at times.
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