365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Forsythia Defender
Day 154: Misumena vatia (Crab Spider)was identified for me by a friend who knows about such things. Me, I steer as widely as possible from anything with eight legs, so I nearly jumped out of my skin when part of the forsythia stepped forward for its portrait. It's not that I'm afraid of spiders, although it took a while for me to decondition myself from a dread instilled by my mother who panicked at the sight of even a small one. She grew up in Black-Widow country, so you could hardly blame her. Still, I like some warning that an encounter is forthcoming. If they take me by surprise, I freak. It's an odd thing for a naturalist to admit, but although I know they're helpful in the garden, I don't really like them.
Labels:
Crab Spider,
forsythia,
gardening,
Misumena vatia
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment