Spiders are antisocial, keep pests under control, and mostly mind their own business …
Donna Lynn Hope, author of “Willow”
Nighttime temperatures fell into the 60s, creating perfect conditions for nighttime walks.
There’s been more-than-usual evidence of armadillo diggings. Being as our yard is a Prairie field, we’ve never paid much attention or been bothered by the divots scattered across the lawn. On occasion I’ve actually felt sorry for the critters trying to ferret out grubs in dirt as hard as brickbats. It’s a tough way to get a meal.
So on a couple of cool nights we gathered flashlights and headed into the dark. First, we fanned the lights around the yard carefully looking for critters; then we sneaked quietly down the stairs and around the bunny pens. The bunnies sat quiet and wide-eyed. They know they are perfectly safe in their hutches.
Sam crept toward the dam while, unbeknownst to him, I wandered to the other side of the house. Shortly I heard him say, “There he is.”
Then in a whisper, “Where are you?” then louder, “Where are you?”
“Over here,” I responded moving close to his side.
He pointed his flashlight to the wooden bridge over the spillway. “There he goes.”
From behind, the armadillo looked like a large gray roly-poly scurrying into the darkness.
On the way back to the house I got a short lecture on staying close to your partner while on nighttime walks. “OK,” I agreed. “I’ll do better the next time.”
I’m bad to wander off like that.
Surprisingly, the next night Sam suggested another nighttime walk, even though it was his favorite TV night when he watches three episodes of “Wicked Tuna.” There’s nothing that catches Sam’s attention like a big fish. Must have been reruns.
It was another cool night; the moon was about three-quarters full, and the sky was clear. This time I stayed near Sam as we pointed flashlights into the night. That’s when I caught sight of spider eyes. Sam introduced me to spider eyes years ago.
If you look closely across the ground, you can pick up glows of light almost like dew sparkles or tiny stars across the yard Those are spider eyes. Mostly they are wolf spiders, nighttime predators.
Wolf spiders have extremely good eyesight; they are pretty much solitary and hunt alone. The spiders are beneficial in reducing insect populations. Wolf spiders have eight eyes and produce “eye shine.”
The light from our flashlights catches the eyes of the spider and reflects the light back to the light source, resulting in a glow. It’s like having “yard stars” on the ground and in the woods. Wolf spiders mostly inhabit the ground so there’s no likelihood of running into a web, unlike the webs hanging from the trees.
Hanging webs are exquisite sightings, a marvel of engineering, but you wouldn’t want to walk into one. No, that causes one to frantically flail the arms and break into a personal rendition of the “spider dance.”
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