Sean Bean and spiders and penny whistles

Some of you complained about yesterday's spider picture, saying that I gave no reference about size. Humble apologies for that...I've added a reference object (my head) to give you a better idea of the actual size of the arachnid in question: Ok, ok. It was actually about 4-5 inches across (the spider, not my head), and the smaller spider was about 2-2.5 inches across. And no, I didn't run screaming, though I was pretty startled; I only noticed when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and then I saw the other spider as well. In answer to some other questions: I actually don't mind spiders as long as they don't jump on me. Anything with more than eight legs does freak me out, though (like centipedes, yuk). And no, I didn't have my camera with me in the outhouse...I went down to the boathouse to get it, came back to take the photo. Then, OF COURSE, I carefully captured both spiders in a special spider-friendly net we keep in the outhouse for just this sort of occasion, and spirited them into the forest to a wonderful place full of other curious spiders (sort of like that spider place in the second Harry Potter movie) where my outhouse spiders could live the rest of their lives in joy and peace and arachnid harmony, joining their spidery little legs in a comradely fashion and singing the spider version of the Whoville song. Was amused by the LJ posting by my pal Graham Leathers, after a slew of "good god, that looks scary" messages: "BEAUTIFUL SHOT!! And what a magnificent specimen. That is in fact a fishing spider, (yes some call them dock spiders) they are common pretty much wherever there is standing water. They eat mostly insects but are known to chow down on small fish and tadpoles as well. They are a good size, body roughly 5 cm (2 inches) and a leg span of up to 13 cm (5 inches). So, yeah, I guess the size you're seeing it there is pretty true to scale. Spiders don't get much bigger in this part of the world. They are completely harmless to people. I had a chat with one when I backpacked into caribou lake one time. They don't make very interesting conversation. All they talk about are neurotoxins and surface tension and a fair bit about insects. For those of you terrified of spiders, I may suggest you read up on them a bit. They become a lot less scary when you stop looking at them as creepy eight legged beasties and start looking at them as organisms adapted to a certain way of life. After all, of the billions of species there are, that we know of, in the world, less than ten are potentially harmful to people. Besides, you're a hundred times the size of the biggest of them, so who should really be scared? I'll get off my naturalist's soap box, now." Graham also points out that the picture of my beetle the other day was actually a photo of a giant water bug, family Belostmatidae, genus Lethocersus. From Gray: "Theses beasties are highly predatory and can inflict a painful bite. Handle with care, or just don't touch it. Eats aquatic insects and small vertebrates. They are inclined to leave the water and fly about and you may see them around lights." I'm lucky to have Gray as my friend. :-) Jeff was working on a cottage project in the forest yesterday, by the way, and says the blackflies have started biting. I played penny whistle yesterday afternoon, sitting on the dock in the sunshine. Haven't played any in a while, and it felt good. I need to start playing whistle with Urban Tapestry, though I'm somewhat intimidated by amazing penny whistle players out there like Chris Conway and Jü Honisch! May 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal