Flying Electric Spiders

That should so be the name of a band, shouldn’t it?  A no-holds-barred garage band whose super-fans throw gigantic fluffy spider toys on stage at gigs (so much more hygienic than knickers).  My sister once had a gigantic fluffy spider toy;  it had pipe-cleaner legs and red teddy-bear eyes on wire stalks, and you could bounce it up and down on the thin elastic attached to its furry black head.  As a child I used it covertly a couple of times by half-hiding it in my bedroom in a bid to scare off the little lady that came once a week to help my mum with the cleaning.   (I’m aware how terribly middle-class that is... Truth being that my mum did struggle to cope, and this was at a time when she was also reliant on another kind of mother’s little helper – the small round one commonly known as Valium).

I was a horrible, naughty child and poor Mrs Sibley in her flowery overall and thick tan tights was the intended victim of my cunning plan.  I was sure that if I carefully secreted the spider in a dusty corner, the unexpected discovery of it would be enough to make her shriek and leave my bedroom in a panic.  The Betta Bilda blocks, my Francie doll and assorted plastic farm animals could then stay strewn on a dirty floor for another week.  ( I tried the same tactic with a rubber snake, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, that’s how much I believed in the power of spiders…

And I still do.  I’m convinced that if real spiders were aware of the fear they are capable of inducing, even in otherwise rational adult humans, they could take over the world.

I also believe that most of the creatures surrounding us are far superior to us in so many ways, they just lack the arrogance and vindictiveness (two purely human traits) to use it against us.   From tiny worms, blind and limbless, being able to detect minute changes in air pressure which means that even underground they can tell when it’s going to rain, to the incredible navigational sense of birds migrating thousands of miles across mountains and oceans to the exact same place each year, these are innate skills we humans can only dream of having.  Then again, worms and birds don’t know how to add a cat face filter to a selfie so we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves...

So here is where flying electric spiders come in.  ‘Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity’ is the sort of headline that makes my ears prick up (without the need for a cat face filter) and to my mind, totally supports the theory of their superiority.  Marvellous, amazing, fantastic spiders - I love them. We know that they are able to travel beyond where their eight little legs can carry them; they've been found two and a half miles up in the sky and 1000 miles out to sea, and recently two researchers at the University of Bristol were able to demonstrate that it was far more than just random wind power that propelled them.  Spiders can actually sense the Earth’s electric field and use it to launch themselves into the air.

These researchers "... put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the centre of a plastic box, and then generated electric fields between the floor and ceiling of similar strengths to what the spiders would experience outdoors.  These ruffled tiny sensory hairs on the spiders' feet... In response the spiders performed a set of movements called tiptoeing - they stood on the ends of their legs and stuck their abdomens in the air...  Many of the spiders actually managed to take off, despite being in closed boxes with no airflow within them..."   

Now I don't know if this sort of stuff interests you as much as it does me, but you can read the full article here.

All this leads me to think that, one day when we've properly fucked up the planet and each other, leaving behind a world inhabited only by the last surviving creatures of the non-human variety, they will fare very well indeed.  Whereas me - well, Mrs Sibley did still clean my room, and moved my toys, unnerved by a fluffy spider with pipe cleaner legs - I'm merely human.

This gives me a good excuse to post some Australian '80s garage punk in the form of the Lime Spiders too, don't you think?!

Happy spider house

Just a quick post as I'm so excited about seeing 'Spider House' this evening (BBC Four, 9pm) - an hour and a half of arachnid love. Reading some blurb about it earlier, I'm sure it's going to be a positive thing for their public image and I'm delighted.

The other night, they even used 'Happy House' in the trailer.  Must be good!

David Bowie and the Spiders from Malaysia

A really crap Photoshop job

You know I love spiders – please bear with me here – I know not everyone does. Seems I've had more than the usual number of close encounters lately; is this telling me something? But what? Yesterday I found the biggest one ever and it seemed particularly, spectacularly, legful. I swear I counted nine. And I counted them twice. But by the time I'd come back with my camera it had, of course, literally legged it. I also found a huge, lifeless one at the bottom of the birdbath this morning, fished it out and left it on a leaf to dry in the sun hoping that it might somehow survive. Five, five, hours later it was up and running about - you have to be patient bringing spiders back from the dead*. Federica (or her successor) is back in residence too.

Anyway, please forgive me the arachnid indulgence; I really just wanted to mention David Bowie. I just found out, whilst researching the possibility of nine-legged beasties (I know) that there is a davidbowie spider. It's large, yellow-haired and endangered.  Say what you like.  When it was newly discovered in Malaysia in 2009 it was named after him to raise awareness of threatened species. There's a neilyoungi too!  Whoever next?

Three posts in four days, what's going on?

*http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090424-spider-resurrection-coma-drowning.html

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)

Not suitable for arachnophobes

Spending a disproportionate number of hours cooped up while working in my converted shed studio is taking its toll on me.  My complexion is pale, my body permanently locked in a seated position, my memory of the last time I left the house for anything resembling a social life now distant.  It’s a wonder I haven’t completely lost the power of speech and reverted to grunts.  “Cup of tea?” calls Mr SDS from the kitchen window.  A grunt accompanied by a thumbs up signifies my positive response.  By evening I’ve drunk twenty cups of tea too many and all I want to do is vegetate with Big Brother.

But that isn’t what I intended to write about tonight (in spite of the brilliant Dexter and Gina twist ;-) ).   It’s just that my lack of physical contact with a variety of homosapiens may explain why I’ve developed a rather worrying degree of affection for the one living creature who shares my studio space with me.

Federica.

Federica the tegenaria duellica (house spider)

Now, please bear with me -  I’m going to talk about a spider, and she is quite a big one.  I won’t pretend that I’d be ok with her crawling up my leg, or that I wouldn’t be freaked out if she suddenly turned up in my shoe.  But Federica seems to be a creature of habit. She’s been with me for some time now (several months) and so far there haven’t been any surprises.  She has a fine mesh web under my desk, about a foot from where I sit, which then stretches round and up towards the adjacent window.  By day she stays in the corner under the desk, and at approximately 5pm every afternoon she comes out to the window area.  She has a little look around, doesn’t do much, just checking to see if there have been any home delivery bluebottles I guess.  It seems we’re both quite content in each other’s company, although any sudden movements from me sending her scuttling back to her corner – which really is the natural order of things, isn’t it, not the other way around…?

Because I see her every day and actually spend more waking time in her company at the moment than I do any other sentient being, I’ve become really fond of her.  I worry that she’s not going to get enough to eat so I keep the windows open.  The desk could do with a tidy up but I’m leaving things so as not to disturb her.  I realised today that, quite perversely, I’m going to miss her when she’s gone. 

I’m also going to be worrying in case she finds a convenient shoe to hide in.

But let’s hope she doesn’t and we can continue to spend our days peacefully, side by side, all Summer.

Cold comforts

It's a bit cold, isn’t it?

Aarghh.  Horrible, horrible cold.  Wind biting through your bones type cold.  Wearing thermal socks in bed type cold (I couldn't cope without them).  I’m so bored of it now.  

The only good thing about it as far as I’m concerned is the profusion of birds it brings into the garden.  For the first time we have a lot of  siskins here.  The huge number of sightings in gardens is a bit of a phenomenon this Winter, apparently.  If you’re a bird-nerd like me you may enjoy this time lapse film of the activity around some feeders (not mine)...  (Although, it has to be said that there isn't much of a plotline!)

                                  

...and some siskins viewed through my shedio window this morning.  Snow too.

Not as many siskins in our garden as in the film, but plenty of bluetits, one of which I’ve been keeping an eye on because he has an unusual deformity which has caused his beak to grow to a freakish length.  It’s about an inch long, maybe more.  (You can see/read more about this condition here.) Cyrano (I had to give him a name, of course) has adapted brilliantly by tilting his head on the side to pick up seed or fat fragments from the ground as he can’t use the feeder, he then takes them to an upright branch which he pins them against with his improbably long bill, meaning he can eat side-on too.  I’m impressed.

At least the birds stay outside, unlike the tiny baby bank vole which I found in the kitchen the other day.  I only knew he was there by a weird chattering, clicking sound – I had no idea what the noise was and followed it quizically like a sniffer dog following a scent, to find a rather exhausted looking ball of fur in a corner.  I don’t know how he got in although we’ve had mice getting trapped in the cavity wall before; we only knew about that when the whiff of roasted rodent wafted in from behind the radiator pipes.    This little vole did look pretty traumatised, probably from climbing over those old mouse remains behind the wall,  the horror of their fates petrified forever like the victims of Pompeii (or so I imagine).  Anyway, he didn’t move much so I was able to pick him up, then popped him under a plant outside and when I checked later he’d gone.   I like to think that Ma vole came and fetched him (aww), giving him a whiskery hug but then squeaking sternly, “I told you NOT to go off on your own!  Where’ve you been?” although I realise it’s possible that he may just have become elevenses for the neighbour’s podgy cat.

                                                              Not the same vole... but cute or what?

Then there are the even smaller intruders.  As I let the washing-up water drain away this morning I noticed something kinda leggy in the bottom of the sink…  you’ve guessed it, yes: a spider.  Well, I’m ok with spiders and this one was particularly clean as well (covered in Fairy Liquid bubbles) so I scooped her up on a piece of kitchen roll and took her outside too.  She looked limp and lifeless, and I didn’t hold out much hope but an hour or so later she started moving again and then crawled softly away (it seems that legs that do dishes can be soft as your face… I bet she smelt all fresh and lemony too).  That made me happy.

I was less happy, however, when I pulled back the duvet last night to get into bed.  (If you're easily  freaked out, you may want to skip this bit...) I like to entwine my legs with another’s as much as you probably do, but two legs will suffice.  Not eight.  He was on the underside of the duvet, if you please, and if a spider could look as if it had just been caught doing something it shouldn’t, then this one did.  I know it’s freezing out there but come on, they’re supposed to be used to this kind of thing – next you know they’ll be moaning about cold feet.  And that’s a lot of thermal bed socks to get.

Natural beauties

I'm all outta words for the moment so in the meantime here are a couple more pictures which seemed quite striking, taken in the back garden...

Travels with my camera

The irony is that I haven’t travelled anywhere much in weeks, not anywhere.  Apart from daily jaunts round the  garden, where I now like to venture with my camera at the ready – just in case.   I feel like a wildlife paparazzo, lying in wait for an unsuspecting spider to come out to its web, or lurking behind a bush to spy on a beetle.

I like it when I come across photogenic things by chance.  Yesterday, having hung the washing out on the line an hour or two earlier, I noticed a Red Admiral sunning itself… on my knickers!  Both of them were flapping gently in the breeze.   I sneaked up to study the delicate beauty, rather liking the combined colour scheme and the way the edges of its wings complemented the lacy trim of my undies.  You know, that juxtaposition thing.   Or maybe you had to be there?

Anyway, I’m not airing my dirty - or clean, for that matter - linen in public, so instead here are some other shots of smalls from yesterday's travels down the garden path.   And if you're not feeling quite so sunny yourself, I hope this little fix of natural beauty may help a bit.

Also - it gives me a tenuous excuse to include an early album track from the highly prolific and charismatic Joseph Arthur... someone I've seen live so many times now I've lost count.  If he comes to the UK to gig again soon I'll be travelling to that - but I'll leave my camera behind.

Joseph Arthur: 'Evidence' from 'Redemption's Son' (2002)

Spider baby!

Yes, I know, if you are at all freaked out by spiders you’re not going to want to read this post, let alone look at the picture… I do understand, they’re not everybody’s cup of tea.  But if you can bear it, I’d like to give these ones a bit of positive PR.

On Christmas Day I happened to be looking upwards and spotted something that warmed my heart – not Santa on his sleigh nor a shining star of wonder, but certainly there was a birth of sorts to be celebrated. Or rather, about twenty births (or should that be hatchings?)  Behold the spider babies, hanging from the ceiling!

Mother and babies doing well...

Baby spiders are called ‘spiderlings’ and these particular ones are from the species ‘pholcus phalangioides’, more commonly known as ‘cellar’, ‘skull’ or ‘daddy longlegs’ spiders.  Here at Sun Dried Sparrows Towers we call them ‘spindlies’.  We’re pretty tolerant of them.  They don’t move around very much, instead preferring to just hang about really – usually from ceiling corners where they’re quite hard to see anyway.  I often wonder how on earth they survive; you don’t notice them catching a lot in their fine webs but, contrary to their somewhat delicate and fragile appearance, they are effective predators.  Other spiders, flies or bugs that inadvertently venture near them are easily killed and eaten, even if they seem much bigger or more robust than their captors. For that reason some people accept them as miniature pest controllers.

Spindlies are fragile in another way though in that they can’t take the cold - it literally kills them.  The species originated from warmer climes but have spread to cooler countries purely through being able to find heat and shelter in our buildings.  I suppose I should evict this family when the spiderlings are a bit bigger as there comes a point when you really don’t want to live in a house so full of eight-legged beasties and cobwebs that it resembles Miss Havisham’s room in Great Expectations.  However, I can’t help but have a strange fondness for these particular ones.  Spindly mum has carried the eggs with her in their sac and kept them safe since she laid them and now she’s staying with the littl’uns until they go off to corners new.  Apparently she’ll even feed them while they’re small, not a behaviour generally associated with creepy crawly life where parental care is rarely a characteristic.

When you think about it, they’d make the perfect pets.  No vet’s bills, no feeding required, no litter trays to empty nor walks to take on during cold winter mornings.  All you’ve got to do is make sure they don’t get too cold.  So… anyone fancy a spiderling?  I’ll do a twenty-for-one offer on them if you like.  Just as long as you remember: spiders are for life and not just for Christmas.

Maybe I’ll just have to take them to Fun Land?