Feeling 'peck'ish

Yesterday Matilda came running in excitedly telling us to come out and see what she'd found. I was busy. Daile went and came back saying that I probably would be interested, so I went out to have a look. This was what she'd found:





Now you're probably thinking that it's just another one of our spiders that I've featured here from time to time. What I didn't manage to show you is the scale of this thing. It was huge, (as big as your hand) and its web had a golden colour which made it the more weird.

I mentioned it to a couple of lads I was working with today and they told me that it was probably a Golden Orb spider. I researched it and found that they were right. There are apparently two basic versions, this kind, and one that is less round in the body. They both get to about 2 inches in body length. The one Matilda found was about an inch and a half I guess.

The interesting thing about these spiders is that they make webs that are up to a metre in diameter, and the thread is strong enough to catch birds. These are not 'bird eating spiders' as such, in as much as they are not 'out to get' spider. However, if one should happen to stray into the web.... well it'd be rude not to indulge!



Our spider was just a smidgen smaller than this. Ha ha Good eh? One of the lads I was speaking to had one land on him. It bit him and he said it hurt... a lot! They are not apparently lethal, unless you have a heart attack from the shock that is!