Around here, nothing quite signals the beginning of fall like the increase in the number of orb-weaving spiders. It begins with one or two building their wheel shaped webs spanning great expanses between branches or leaves.

The next thing you know there are 5, 6 or more getting to work nightly building massive and incredibly sturdy webs. They start popping up all over the neighborhood.

There is nothing like accidentally walking through the remnants of one of these spider’s strong, sticky webs to turn me into a giant whirligig, madly brushing at my clothes. These spiders are persistent. Every night they construct and in the morning can be found seemingly floating in mid-air in the center of their web.

Yet, they are skittish too. Often, as I approach one it will scurry away from the center and hide.

Upon the occasion of an unsuspecting bug becoming trapped in the web, the spiders will spring into action to immobilize their prey.

As much as the sight of spiders makes my skin crawl, I can’t help but find these creatures fascinating and admire the beautiful webs they create; using a telephoto lens at 300mm from a bit of a distance, of course.

And, I am thankful I have never found one inside. I like to think of them as nature’s Halloween decorations.

If you are in the Los Angeles area and would like to see all types of amazing spiders and their webs, the Natural History Museum has recently opened the spider pavilion. It’s a creepy, crawly good time!

We welcome fall and all the season brings!

~Sue