Spider Mum

For the last few weeks we've been nature watching through our new kitchen window. A spider took up residence there and shortly after we noticed she'd spun a small sac. By a lucky coincidence I happened to be standing by the window when she started laying her eggs into it, which gave me a kind of "godfather" proprietary feeling towards the little guys as I've watched the sac grow and swell over the weeks since.

Pretty soon individual spiderlets began to be discernible through the silk and then, shortly before the weekend, one of them crawled out. Followed by another. Pretty soon they were all moving slowly about in the space under the window rail, protected from wind and rain by a large web their Mum had spun over the corner of the window.

Now my camera is notoriously bad at extreme close-ups - the autofocus is always totally defeated (in this case it insisted on focussing on the neighbour's wall) and the manual focus is totally useless - so I've had to back off and zoom in from a distance for this shot, but if you click on the pic to expand it and then zoom in you should be able to see the little guys, who at this stage are still spending most of their time inside their old sac.

During the period of development, Mum has faded away almost to nothing. I mean literally. When she laid the eggs she looked like a regular small spider, but having not left their side for two whole months she's become gradually more transparent. A shadow of her former self.

All this has been a fascinating pageant, developing in front of our eyes as we check up on the family every time we do the washing up or make a cup of tea, but we've decided that once is enough. If there are any signs of sacs or egg laying next year I'll be deploying the hose. Incy Wincy she ain't.