area 25 artistry: Charlotte's Web (and a morning walk)

WARNING: If spiders give you the willies, you may want to scroll down to the second half of this post. But if you do, you're a chicken. And not one of those clever, diaper-wearing, egg-laying pet chickens....but the great big, cry-baby, weeny kind.

Personally I felt things crawling on me the whole time I was culling and finishing these for the post, but Charlotte is a beautiful specimen of Argiope Aurantia (or Yellow and Black Garden Spider), and since she made a home at our gate a few weeks ago, I have become quite fascinated with her. In just about 12 days time, her abdomen has doubled in size. She's always eating, so I'm not sure if the swollen abdomen is from all the grub, or if she's preparing to lay an egg and become a spider mom to dozens of little spider babies.

I just got the willies again.

Anyhoo, I didn't intend to take so many pictures of Charlotte (I named her because like my children, I am desperate for a pet). I've just been taking my camera on my morning walks, and on this day, I was particularly amazed by her spidery-creepiness.

So if you can handle all the weird and fascinating details of an enormous, yet beautiful and intriguing garden spider (science and nature geeks unite!), I'm about to share my National-Geographic-Wannabe best....

(introductory photo to lure those faint-of-heart into this post...)

morning dew on a blade of grass

Nikon D700 - Sigma 105 2.8

This is Charlotte. She's about 2.5" in length (body) and 4" in diameter, including her long, lanky legs.

Not that I have any room to talk, but this girl has put on a few grams lately.

Creepy, right?

The stuff my nightmares are made of, folks.

And just in case you've ever wondered about the business-end of a spider (or as scientists and fellow nerds would call it, spinnerets)-

This is where the silk for her web comes from.

Doing her thing, spinning her web, minding her own business....

until....

Silly moth. You just messed up.

I felt sorry for it for a minute, but then I thought about the moth holes in my Rolling Stones t-shirt.

And how the horse-flies and wasps have been absent from the gate and the mailbox since Charlotte moved in.

Carry on, Charlotte.

Watching her subdue and wrap up the moth was really, really cool. I pretended I was shooting for educational purposes, and channeled my inner National-Geograpic-Photographer-Wannabe.