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Originally Posted by ploddinTod
Ed,
I went to your website to view your photos of the gators. Nice job but where are the spiders? Just remember those guys are our friends for all of the insects they dispose of.  |
I realize the value of spiders. I don't kill them when I find them in my apartment. I find a way to shoo them out the door.
However, as I said in my post, they give me the willies when I have to be close to them. I have no desire to photograph them. Besides, my best friend is severely arachnophobic and if he saw even ONE spider pic on my site, he'd never go there again.
I had a run in with a REALLY big spider at Village Creek SP yesterday. I stepped off the path to shoot a pic of Sandy Slough, careful to avoid a particularly evil looking arachnid. I shot a couple of pics, then cut back to the path only to walk right into a different, and even larger spider's web. I managed to fling the web (and its creator) off my neck failry qickly. I have no idea the species nor if it was dangerous but this thing was easily the size of the palm of my hand. After that, I walked with a small stick in my hand, held up perpendicular to my body in front of me to prevent any further encounters.
Didja see the pics of the gator at Sea Rim? I actually saw 4, but the one on the site was the only one I got a really good pic of. You can see in the pic that it was just laying beside the boardwalk without a care for the humans walking by. Before I encountered that beauty, about a 3' gator nabbed a bird right by the boardwalk right after I'd passed by. I heard the commotion behind me and saw the gator drag off its prize, still crunching. I have a shot from fairly close but it didn't come out very good. I've been debating if I should post it on my site.
I really need to sort through the pics I've taken in June & July and post some of the better ones here. I've only got one more hike planned before school starts. Gonna go check out Huntsville SP in a couple of weeks.