Have you ever wondered who your neighbors are?
Turns out I have some pretty nice people in my neighborhood.
Here’s a short video/slideshow about my neighbor Harry.
Tag Archive: california spider
When I think about recycling, I tend to think about the side that I see. I don’t actually see the entire process of recycling, I just know that I put my plastics, cans, and paper in the correct bins they get picked up and taken away by waste management. I am glad we watched Manufactured Landscapes because I had no idea that so much of our “e-waste” ends right back up where it was manufactured: China; it only seems fitting. Seeing the blocks of waste stacked up reminded me of the Disney film WALL-E. I really liked how the film transitioned from scene to scene, especially from the hot iron factory to the landfill and back to the factory; I may incorporate a similar technique in my future projects.
Anyway, I would like to switch gears and think about recycling in a different sense. I thought back to what Aaron R. said in our class (at least I think it was him) about recycling ideas or themes and I began to think about recycling one of my ideas. I wanted to revisit the spiders at my house because I enjoyed taking the first round of pictures. Additionally, I am a person who loves nature, but also loves technology; I saw this as a chance to put them together.
In terms of recycling, I have noticed that the spiders that hang out by my front door re-use parts of their old webs; at least that is what it looks like. They do not re-use their entire webs because see them spin new webs each night, but the spots where they attach their silk threads remains the same for the most part. I have literally walked into what I thought was a single piece of thread, but when I followed it to the base it was more like 8 pieces of silk wound up together. I didn’t even break the thread after running into it; it was so strong that I could pluck it like a guitar string and it would not break (needless to say the spider was already gone before I started to play). So without further ado, check out more spider pictures from my personal nature reserve (A.K.A. my house). I have also added a few of my favorite “non-spider” pictures that I took over the last two weeks. Enjoy.
Last Monday night (Sept. 12) I noticed a huge spider web near the front door of my house; in fact I almost ran into it. After some careful observation I saw the tremendous spider right in the center of its web. I was immediately fascinated. I took out my DSLR and started taking some pictures.
The next morning the spider was gone and only small remnants of the amazing web it had spun were still visible. That evening I kept an eye out for the spider and to my surprise it was back. This time I had my DSLR and my video camera ready. I was able to record it spinning its web as well as get more pictures. So far, the spider has come back every night, spinning a new web each time (I believe it hides out in my rain gutter during the day).
Yesterday morning I noticed another one of these webs as I looked out of my kitchen window and I actually saw a bee fly into it. The spider quickly came out of hiding and wrapped the bee up; I felt like I had the Discovery channel in my own back yard, so I rushed for my cameras once again and luckily managed to get some shots.
If anyone reading this knows what kind of spider this is please leave a comment.
Below are some of my favorite pictures and you can see more on my Flickr slideshow:
Sebastian Maselli 