Spiders in the Native Garden
It astonished me how little my naked eye could see of the underside of this Nordmann’s Orb Weaver until I captured this image with my new macro lens. Tiny detail reveals incredible beauty. Spiders are different than other insects – they have fangs which usually have venom in them, and they spin silk to capture prey. These differences make them really important in the native garden.
Here’s the top side of this spider. Orb-weavers, unlike other insects, don’t eat plants – they eat the bugs that are eating plants! Their circular webs are like big nets set up to capture flying insects. Spiders are also prey -their squishy soft bodies are an excellent food choice for birds feeding fledglings – spiders make up 20-30% of the diet of young songbirds.
The American Nursery Web Spider is also a predator of other insects, but its strategy is to hunt them, not catch them in a web. They spin webs, but only as a way to raise their young.
Many of us are taught to be afraid of spiders, and have a visceral reaction that they are creepy. They hide in nooks and crannies and surprise us, sometimes not in a good way. But the more you learn about them, the less fearful you can be. Nearly all spiders are incapable of giving you lasting injuries. Some spiders even have courtship dances. I can’t wait to find and photograph more species!