Oh, what mangled webs

A spider lurks (top center) just under the arm of the rear wiper of our SUV this afternoon, embracing a moth newly encased in silk. Remnants of its web, which extended across much of the back of the vehicle below the wiper, can be seen in lower half of photo.

A large spider -- possibly one of the orb weavers -- chose the back of our Chevy Blazer parked in the driveway to build its web and traveled back and forth with us to Maine last weekend. The web, a classic two-dimensional circular one, sustained considerable damage during the voyage. We assumed the spider had long since left the premises, and yesterday curiosity led us to pluck a dangling object off the top of the web where it attached to the wiper arm. It was the spider's version of an MRE, a moth encased in silk (not the same one in the photo above). Tossing the cocooned moth aside, we were surprised to see the the spider suddenly emerge from behind the wiper arm as if to scold us for taking its hard-earned lunch, but it was too late.  A frantic search in the vegetation beside the driveway turned up nothing, and we left the scene consumed with guilt at our careless disruption of the spider's meal plan, assuming it would have to rebuild the entire web from scratch in order to secure another moth or other insect.  When we went back to check today, the web was still in tatters, but the resourceful arachnid had somehow managed to capture and bind another moth and appeared to be enjoying an early supper, sucking the life juices out of its fresh catch.

Technical note. We're on our cheapie back-up camera, as the Pentax Optio 450 is back in Golden, Colorado again, this time because the flash and shutter were out of sync. That's our excuse for not taking a dazzlingly sharp close-up of dramatic doings in the driveway. Meanwhile, to satisfy your dazzlingly sharp close-up needs, click on over to Bev's at Bebere, where her boyfriend's awesome photographs of selected flora and fauna from the Arnold Arboretum -- together with Bev's lucid prose -- are stealing the scene.