A Silver Surprise

Today, the flash on my camera was my new viewpoint, and with it, I made an incredible discovery!!!

This is the Silver Garden Spider:

And here is it's underbelly:

I was wondering why it was called the Silver spider, because it looked pretty yellowish and brown colored to me. But then, a few days later, while I was out photographing the yard again, I took another picture of the same spider, this time with a flash…LOOK what it revealed!!!!

You can clearly see the Silver hairs lining its head and body!

This never would have been able to be seen had it not been for the flash of the camera. I do not like using the flash function, just as a personal preference, but sometimes, a flash can reveal things not otherwise viewable!

After the photo-op was over, I went inside to do some googling on the matter. I came to find that this was a female silver spider (like most arachnids, the females grow larger than the males). Her web is a construction that she sometimes has to rework every day, and all those little hairs on her body help her to navigate and sense the world around her, along with feeling vibrations through the silken strings of her web.

I know many people hear about, or even think, spider and want to immediately run away. It’s cool. They are a bit terrifying and they sure do look menacing (especially if you see them up close). But as an animal lover myself, I have come to truly love all animals—even the creepy, crawly ones. And so, when I’m out in my yard photographing plants and birds and flowers and such, if I see a “crawly” in the perfect position for a shot, I take it! And my shots are always friendly.

This is one of the more impressive specimens I’ve seen here in Lake Elsinore, California, and one of the largest. She was about the size of a US half dollar coin with legs that stretched for days.

In person I couldn’t see the fine hairs on her legs you are able to witness in the photos, and once I saw that silver body shot, I was speechless. It was pretty incredible. I’m one of those nerds who grew up watching the Crocodile Hunter and basically every nature/animal documentary ever made, so I guess it was only a matter of time before maturing into a grander appreciation for and love of the animals I once deemed “unworthy to walk this earth” (though, flies and gnats are still separate and will ALWAYS be considered unworthy in my opinion. GET OUT OF MY FACE!).

Anyway, I thought you would enjoy an open perspective on spiders, and hopefully at least the pictures were able to give you a new perspective!

Here are a couple more shots from the day just for fun:

This male hummingbird was so cute and beautiful and friendly! He was maybe 5 feet away from me for about 10 mintues while I took an overwhelming amount of photos of him. I couldn’t get enough! Then it started to sprinkle and my camera finger went berserk on the rest of the garden.

The way the camera was able to capture the sprinkles frozen in mid air in these was pretty cool! I wasn’t even trying to do that, it just happened.

The water droplets on the plants were just spectacular even in person, but when edited and focused up close so you can really see their details, it is awesome.

Nature is able to come up with some seriously interesting designs. These are all plants from my parent’s yard when I lived with them. A LOT of cactus. But even still, to me, it was gorgeous. Their garden was my masterpiece I used to say. Every morning I used to spend out there, especially when I had my chickens, and I would just soak up the beautiful views. We were on top of one of the mountains and could see the lake down below from our house. Absolutely stunning.

The outdoors will always be my favorite place to be. And when I get to be outside seemingly all alone, that is when my connection to our beautiful planet overflows. Just like the rain.

Thanks for spending a few minutes with me and enjoying the outdoors!