The Daily Bucket is a place where we post and exchange our observations about what is happening in the natural world in our neighborhood. Bugs, buds, birds - each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
Gooseville, WI
Trashline orb-weaver web
(Cyclosa turbinata)
Back in early August, I noticed a delicately spun web tucked shyly in a corner of the garden gazebo, out of the way of wagging dog tails.
The small orb was only about the diameter of a softball and was neatly decorated vertically down the center with rolled silken balls of trash (old egg sacs, detritrus, leftover corpses of breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and other web collected stuff.)
My small hoarder, a Trashline orb-weaver, hides within the 4 or 5 inch string of bangled beads on her stabilimentum and could easily settle on the head of a pin and hardly be noticed.
Some folks say her trashline is to attract prey to the web. Some say it might keep birds from running headlong into it by making it more visible. Others note that it seems to decrease prey capture, but functions as camouflage from predators. I've another notion.
I read the letter 'i' written on her web.
at first, I thought she was writing the number '7'
but, then she finished the letter 'J'.
Next week, if she begins to work on the letter 'm', I'll worry she's a bit dyslexic like me and working to spell 'jim'. That's a great honor!
Little Cyclosa turbinata is hiding in each picture. Can you find her?
What Charlotte said.
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
-E.B. White, Charlotte's Web.
What's new in your backyard? Got birds or blooms? Got a spider that can spell or write like E.B. White? What's your location?