Towheeblog

We’ve had our first day above 90-degrees.  Families of Bushtits come around, then skitter off as quickly and quixotically as they arrive. The Red-breasted Nuthatch plays his little tin horn, then drops onto the feeder from the nearest shrubby hideaway. Swifts swirl above our roof, then drop without warning from the sky blue into our inactive chimney where they have their nest and vocal chicks.

Also we have three siskins, not a species I would expect this time of year and presumably they found a comfy conifer to nest in.  Surprisingly, today I saw an adult male junco in our garden.  It is at least half a mile to a forest where they might find nesting habitat…so are they done raising young for the year…or simply for the nonce?

Best of all, right now, are the appearing garden spiders.  Webs begin to adorn plant and windows and other suitable anchoring sites.

The second web was impossible to capture in toto.  It is in front of a window which makes for strange light, images impinging, but the spider made it unphotographable…it is suspended between two boxwood plants, about twelve feet apart!  That’s right, the spider, less than an inch in diameter including legs, spun a threat that floated or was windblown across that gap and on that she built her web.  There is a single anchor thread down to the window ledger but that was easy as she would have simply let herself down as the thread emerged from her spinneret.
The first web is very mundane, built in perfect pattern of many sides, all on one face of the boxwood, that nearest the house and thus least wind affected.