Northland Nature: Spiders weave first orb webs of season
May 17—May is a month filled with nature happenings. The temperatures are warming, though frost still may be with us. May can be a dry month, but typically we get showers. It is the beginning of our rainy season, and we usually have some thunder.
For the next few months, we get the greatest amount of precipitation that we will get for the whole year. And foggy mornings are common.
It is a spring month in which we often note the presence of many beginnings. We look for the early spring wildflowers that start suddenly, reach an abundance and quickly fade in the shade.
Nearby, often seen along the roadsides, are a plethora of small trees that hold white blossoms: wild plum, pin cherry, juneberry and elders lead the way for more to come.
Songbird migration may be at its peak now and we seek the first of orioles, grosbeaks, vireos, wrens, warblers and hummingbirds to move into our yards and take up residents as they did in previous years.
The trio of frogs — wood frogs, chorus frogs and spring peepers — have been calling from the vernal ponds since late April, but now we listen for new ones in May: leopard frogs, gray treefrogs and toads.
New-born fox pups explore the woods. One day, we will look out to see a new fawn that was dropped during the night.
There are more butterflies, bees, mosquitoes and dragonflies. And the spider season begins as well.
Going through their annual cycle, most spiders pass the winter either as eggs or immatures. With the warming weather, they hatch and grow. Still being small, we are not likely to see them except in certain weather conditions.
Such was the case recently when I went for a walk on a foggy morning. The temperature was about 40 degrees — cool, but not too cool for these eight-legged critters. Some were actively making webs the night before.
As I walked on a road and a nearby trail, I noticed their webs coated with droplets. If the fog were not present, I probably would not have seen these snares. But here they were. The web-makers were in hiding, but I was able to see their constructions.
Spider webs are of four types. Cobwebs appear to be haphazard threads, often seen in buildings. Sheet webs are common in shrubs and frequently take on a bowl shape. Funnel webs are shaped like funnels with an opening in the center, and are common on the ground.
Orb webs are circular and vertical — what most of us think of as spider webs. Because of the foggy days, I was able to locate many funnels which were in the roadside grasses and on branches in the woods, I found the first orbs of the season.
Orbs are very common in late summer and after the spiders have grown. They may be a couple feet in diameter. Once again, easy to see in the dew and fog. Most orb weavers lay eggs in the late summer and fall. The newly hatched young in spring are too small to make webs. But there are exceptions.
The webs that I found were about a foot long and constructed by a spider that survived the winter as a subadult. After a molt, it is able to make adult-sized webs. This spider, the furrow spider (Larinioides), is common and their webs can be found in various habitats, from woods to fields.
There will be plenty more webs as we continue through the next months, but these first ones were in May.
