Don't cry wolf

One I photographed earlier

Time to do a bit more PR for my eight-legged friends, you know how much I love them.

I've noticed a lot of wolf spiders about lately, mainly because the sun has finally come out these last few weeks and wolf spiders like it. On any warm sunny day, if you look closely at exposed walls, low lying plants or bare ground, you're bound to notice a few of these creatures, just basking. They come in various sizes and colours but as far as I'm aware they all have the same distinctively pointed abdomen and a blunt sort of head with quite obvious fangs. They also tend to sit around (you know what I mean) for a long time in the same pose - with their rather downy-looking front legs close together pointing forwards.

There are two things I especially like about wolf spiders. Firstly, as part of the mating ritual, the males offer their intended females a gift. It comes in the form of a ready meal – a dead fly (wrapped, of course, in the finest silk). It's not exactly altruistic; not only does he do it to get his legs over, but also because without this dinner it's quite likely he may end up being eaten himself. This way he can just get on with mating with her while she tucks in to her main course. I consider myself very geeky privileged to have watched this courtship behaviour one day last summer (and meanwhile, in an anthropomorphic parallel world, a wolf spider blogs about human voyeurism).

The other thing about wolf spiders concerns the female who takes great care of her egg sac and carries it around with her. A practical reason for this is that wolf spiders don't weave webs, so have nowhere to leave them as they are always on the move, hunting down their prey with stealth (and venom). Anyway, she carefully carries this cumbersome sac beneath her, raised up slightly from the ground so as not to cause damage, and then when the eggs hatch after about 7 to 10 days... oh, this is the bit I love... for the next week or so she carries her tiny babies* around on her back.  Wolf spiders – many species of which are common around the world – are the only ones that do this. Sweet, eh? Well... I'm smitten.  And it's funny how when you're interested in something you can effortlessly store all this useless information, yet still struggle with your nine times table.

 Good song, tenuous connection

* spiderlings (aww)

Sex, violence and Easter eggs

Hmm, I wondered if that would get you to look up from your chocolate bunny for a moment…  

It’s just that there are some very saucy things going on here right now and I feel compelled to share them.  For the last few weeks the world outside my window has been full of shagging, shouting and sparring, and it’s all about eggs.  Ah, Spring time.  This is bird life at its most active. 

I love this time of year more than ever for watching and listening to the garden birds.  Throughout the day there is constant singing – blackbirds with their enchanting, melodic ditties, a song-thrush with its strange repertoire of repeated phrases, the little dunnock and its flutey speeded-up trills.  They sound sweet to me but not so sweet to fellow members of their species who are no doubt hearing something along the lines of, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” and “Are you looking at my bird?” (see what I did there?) as well as the more aggressive, “This is my property now so you can all fuck off…”

If the singing (shouting) doesn’t put off their rivals there is plenty of swaggering to back it up.  Dunnocks make me laugh the most – small, brown, fairly indistinctive and timid-looking the rest of the year, these characters are masters at macho posturing during breeding season.  They puff themselves up and lower their heads in the manner of a muscle-bound hardnut about to headbutt someone.   That’s when they’re not flapping their wings at each other like manic semaphore signallers.  It’s all very showy and is perhaps a way to avoid violent confrontation, whereas blackbirds and robins get more combative and will fight dirty if they need to.  Some conflicts have even been known to be fatal, but I’m glad to say I’ve never witnessed quite that extreme.  The loss of some feathers, pride and the claim on the territory/mate in question is usually where it all ends.

As far as the sex goes it seems that woodpigeons and collared doves are the least inhibited.  They’ll shag just about anywhere.  Usually on our garden fence or on the neighbour’s roof.  I’ll admit, rather blushingly, to being a bit of a voyeur here.  It’s just that they have these fascinating little rituals and my interest in nature is such that I’m not going to get prudish about a bit of exhibitionist pigeon rumpy-pumpy.  They seem to be the only group of birds who indulge in lengthy foreplay; some necking and nuzzling clearly gets them in the mood.  Then she goes all submissive to him and he lets out a cry as he, ahem, ‘triumphs’.  Once the deed is done they stick together too, in a kind of ‘afterglow’ moment I suppose; I half-expect each to pull a cigarette out from under its wing and have a post-coital puff. 

A little further down the line, when all this sexual and violent intensity has calmed down a bit, the results of all the posturing, pugilism and fornication will make their debut into the world.  I can’t wait.  I’ll hear the first high-pitched peeping sounds from the nest box and find fragments of freckled or mottled eggshell by the hedge.  Told you it was all about eggs.