Creepy Crawly Spiders

Brown Recluse Spider. This spider's bite is not very painful but causes much pain when its venom starts to eat away at your flesh. A person in Bristol, Rhode Island was bit over the summer. It bites only in defense. So if you see this spider, it should leave you alone. 

Spiders are just plain creepy. I don't know if it's the eight, gangly and hairy legs or the big black, unforgiving eyes that look right through you with a predatory stare. Crawling on walls, skittering on the floor, hiding in crevices and corners. When I was little, I sometimes wished they were all dead. That tells you how little I knew about food webs back then. Because without spiders, insects would surely rule the Earth and "bug" us all to death.

 I hate our Halloween spider decoration. It hangs from the ceiling and any loud, sudden noise makes it drop on a string and then it slowly pulls itself back up the string. It's now on the steps in the foyer just sitting there looking at passersby, doing more of what a real spider would do. Maybe I'll smash it with my shoe after Halloween, doing more of what a bug killer would do.

And as the only male in the house, I am the celebrated bug killer. I sometimes look in the mirror and see a metallic bug zapper with blue lights, indiscriminately killing any insect or arachnid that comes my way. During "Spider Season", which lasts from March through August, I am used to being told that a HUGE or WICKED LARGE spider is somewhere in the house and that I should kill it. Every single time I see this HUGE spider, I am relieved to find that it is simply normal-sized, because what they do not know is the actual size of some spiders that I have seen in the past. Two or three times I have witnessed an enormous spider that dwarfs all the ones I have seen in my life. No one else has seen these spiders and I don't care to inform my family members because I don't enjoy inflicting psychological harm on other human beings. These Monsterquest spiders are dead now but I know they probably reproduced.

 So when I see a spider I tell myself two things; "I am not its food," and "It gets rid of mosquitoes." These things calm me and gives me a brotherly bond with spiders in our mission to rid the Earth of evil, blood sucking mosquitoes. But even with our brotherly bond, I still think they are creepy. Very creepy. Included below are some pictures of spiders I have seen over the summer.

Enjoy if you dare.

My Mom is trying to get a black jumping spider to come out of the crevice. I say  "let sleeping spiders lie!" 

 

Wow! This was a huge jumping spider on my driveway. I let it live. 

I said three words with I saw this spider. OMG. This was huge orb spider in a defensive posture. I let it live and the next day it made a web in a bush next to the house. 

This is another orb spider. Pretty huge. I caught it in a jar and let it loose in a pine tree farther away from the house.
 Go get 'em mosquito slayer! 

This is a flattened weird spider near a bike path in West Warwick. It might be related to a jumping spider. 

I have no recollection of this spider. Very big abdomen here. Makes me appreciate those Daddy Long Legs. 

When I go geocaching I sometimes blindly put my hand into dark crevices and holes like this. All for a geocache? It's the thrill of the hunt. I'm just hoping that I don't become the prey someday! 

Year of the Comet

Could 2013 be the year of the comet? Maybe. I still remember the thrill of seeing Halley's comet back in 1986. It wasn't like seeing fireworks at Disney, but to see a fuzzy blobish light through my old telescope and knowing it was the famous Halley's comet sent shivers up my spine. It still does today.

St. Valentine's Day Almost Massacre

I recently found out that several significant astronomical events will take place in 2013. Let's start with February 15th. On this day a 150 foot long meteor (or 149 feet, 11 inches long if you use Subway's calculations,) will travel by Earth at a ridiculously close distance.   This meteor will travel under some man made satellites and according to NASA's calculations it will not hit Earth. I completely trust NASA's math analysis on this prediction. Not because they have the best mathematicians and landed humans on the moon, but because I'm too lazy to do the math myself. If you are still a bit worried, watch this NASA scientist put you at ease with this short video.   http://youtu.be/1ycGo-b25TQ

Mid March

Beware the Ides of March. Or rather beware the dumb names of comets. Usually comets are named after the people who discovered them like comet Halley, comet Swift-Tuttle, comet Hale-Bopp and my personal favorite, comet Hyakutake, which I am tempted to order every time I eat at Seven Moons. 

The comet of this month is called Comet PANSTARRS. Ready? This comet is named after the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System project based on Hawaii. Can't we call this the Hawaiian Comet? At least that sounds like a lovely drink. Non-alcoholic of course.

So between March 12-18 look for the Hawaiian Comet right after sunset towards the west. 

Early April - Comet Lemmon

Named after the Lemmon Observatory in Arizona and not after Del's Lemonade, Comet Lemmon will be visible in the western skies around April Fool's Day. This comet has a period of 11,000 years which means that only vampires that are alive 11,000 years from now can see the comet again. The greenish tinge of this comet is caused by -- you guessed it --the poisonous gas cyanogen.  This factoid basically means nothing unless you are excited, like me, to share this knowledge with forlorn looking people at dinner parties. 

The Comet of the Century (maybe)

Here we have Comet ISON named after the International Scientific Optical Network based in Russia. I'm actually OK with this name because if this comet was named after its two discoverers it would be called comet Nevski-Novichonok which doesn't roll off my tongue as easily as comet Shoemaker-Levy, which smashed into Jupiter back in 1994. 

Currently, comet ISON is near Jupiter and may be visible to us in late October as it approaches the Sun. On November 28th, Comet ISON will be inside the corona of the Sun and will be enduring much stress due to the corona's 2 million degree temperature which is almost as hot as Florida in July. If comet ISON can survive this Floridian heat, it may be visible during the day and be spectacular at night. This is the comet that just might be the comet of our lifetime. But comets are unpredictable, so you never know if they will live up to their own hype. Sort of like the Forty Niners in the Superbowl.  

So there you have it. Three comets and a meteor.

Even though that sounds like a bad ABC comedy, 2013 looks to be a spectacular year for looking up to the skies.  

A Red Shouldered Hawk Gets Mobbed!

A Red Shouldered Hawk flies away to evade annoying mobbing by a family of crows.

There was a large, slow-gliding shadow over the bird feeder. As I looked out my kitchen window, I saw one motionless goldfinch on the feeder hoping not to be spotted. I was glad to not hear a low thud against the window pane. Sometimes when birds of prey surprise a flock of birds at the birdfeeder, the potential meals scatter and some zoom right into the kitchen window and get knocked out, leaving behind a tuft of feathers clinging to the glass.

I was lucky to see the hawk perched on a white oak branch not too far away from the birdfeeder. I watched it for a few seconds and rushed to get my camera. I had a feeling this ragged raptor was going to hang out for just a few fleeting moments. When I hurried back to the window, I noticed a family of crows sprayed out on different branches in nearby trees. The crows were cawing loudly and making sure all animals knew this predator was in the area. I snapped a few pictures of the grumpy hawk, and worried about identification later.

Everybody loves an underdog.  And these ordinary crows were no match for the strength and agility of a raptor.  Working as a group to harass the hawk gave them a boldness that they would not have as individuals.  This is called mobbing behavior. Crows use this to teach their young what a predator looks like and to drive a predator away from a nest site. 

Without warning, the hawk flew off realizing that it would find no rest in my backyard.  (see picture)

A crow mobbing a red shouldered hawk waits for it to move.

A friend of mine told me it was a Red Shouldered Hawk. That was news to me because the last time I tried to identify a hawk in the back yard I had difficulty deciding if it was a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. If you see a hawk and want to identify it, try the link below. This link will bring you to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website which specializes in helping you figure out which bird is what. Or you can just email a friend.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-shouldered_Hawk/id#similar