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The S I L K Y
Bandits
You might think you don't like spiders, and that is okay, but just meet a few of them and take a minute to think about their life.....
Despite what fables and media would have you believe spiders are about as concerned with humans as with rocks, we are just part of the environment.
These silky bandits, live a life of pure survival; they mostly live a solo life, they have no back-up, they rely wholly on their individual skills and instinct to stay alive. Everything around them is out to get them, people, birds, mammals, other spiders, larger insects, the weather...... there is no respite for these ingenious creatures who are just trying to eek out a living, get some food and bring their kids safely into the world.
Some of our quite beautiful Silkies
The Blendy ones....
One of the ways that spiders survive is to stay out of sight, this helps them in their hunt for their own food, and helps them avoid being food. Some are particularly good at camouflage and they appear to be aware of it, some are so good it makes you wonder if they have the ability to change their appearance. To my knowledge this is not a thing, which means these spiders are very skilled at choosing a background into which they will blend. ... or is it just luck?
Garden Orbs, the cutest of the orbs
The Garden Orb Weavers, or 5-spined Orb Weaver spiders are my favourite, these are gentle giants of the spider world, colourful, can grow quite large and are most dedicated mothers.
The Silver Orbs..
The Silver Orb Weavers have a habit of hanging out in the middle of their web, even as fully grown adult spiders they weave a large web and they wait in the middle. This is quite different from most web weavers who will lay in wait off to the side of the web, waiting for their prey to run into it. This is the position you will most often find them, if they are inspired to hide in the vegetation around the web, they would be very difficult to find, actually nearly every photo I have of Silver Orbs, small or large, is sitting in the middle of their web complex.
The Weirdos....
There are always some that fall outside of the mold
The Jumpers
Nursery Web Spiders
Wolf Mother in the garden
The Wolf Spiders
The Streeetch Spiders
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