I’m expanding my repertoire. I’ve bought a macro camcorder and plan to film insects and spiders as well as birds.

Bet you didn’t know that some spiders take down their web every morning and rebuild it each night. The Barn Spider in this film, whom I call Charlotte because she’s the same type as the spider in Charlotte’s Web, sometimes looks like she’s closing a series of zippers and other times swings around the web like Tarzan.

Funny thing about how I came to film this spider: she chose us, or rather the sliding door to our patio. We took down the web twice because we use that door all the time. Then the third day, we didn’t take it down and it disappeared! Next morning, it was back. That’s when we began to suspect what was happening. So I got up early and got her on film a couple of days. Charlotte has since departed, whether to the sweet hereafter or to somebody else’s sliding door (because I annoyed her poking around so close to her), I don’t know. But I sure had a lot of fun learning about her habits and watching her take the web down.

See all my movies on my YouTube channel: Jo Alwood

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