Saturday 14 October 2017

Urban Diary

The air is heavy with the smell of sex and death. It is spiders' mating season out in both my front and back garden. Soon after breeding the male of the species will be given its last rites. Staying behind, the female brown house spider will sit quietly for hours on its tangled and sticky web.

A wet summer, a damp autumn, unusually warm temperatures. All these factors have led to an increase of eight-legged creatures on my doorstep. And inside the house. Especially in the bathtub, on the off-white walls, or scurrying from one corner of the kitchen to another (usually the male), stopping for a second in the middle of the white floor, thus, becoming the initial Damien Hirst-inspired black dot on a blank canvas, and then legging it again (pun intended).



The courtship is a beauty, although not for Mr Spider in the long term. It (He?) spins a small web on which a tiny drop of its semen goes. After carrying it around on two palps the male spider will eventually find a female partner with a ready-made web (talk about finding a Sugar Mama!). Cohabitation follows after which Sir will be surplus to requirements. Outside my kitchen window this scenario is being played out as the sky darkens and the clouds close ranks. The whole set-up reminds me of Queen’s Killer Queen:  “She's a Killer Queen/Gunpowder, gelatine/Dynamite with a laser beam/Guaranteed to blow your mind/Anytime”. The scent of sex and death. Somehow the air feels incredibly heavy.

Photo taken by the blog author

© 2017

30 comments:

  1. A perfectly timed post, (thinking of Halloween coming). :) Spiders are great architects.

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  2. It seems entirely right that the scent of sex and death weighs the air down...

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  3. Love the photo and the post. Spiders are one of those creatures I really don't mind, as long as they're not the venomous variety (of which we have two in our area... black widows and brown recluses). Most of the time I just leave them to their own devices.

    Now I've got that song running through my head! ;)

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  4. Hi Blogoratti - they are all over the place aren't they ... and then they hatch and the place is crawling with tiny little eight legs ... and they go everywhere ... well written - cheers Hilary

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  5. Nature triumphs .... or so it would appear ....

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  6. Never thought about the details of spider propagation.
    So, that big, fat spider I have hanging in my window is a mother, huh?
    Yeesh!

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  7. You gave a nice tutorial on the propagation of spiders. It was interesting. Now I feel like cleaning the cob webs I saw behind my son's chair.

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  8. We've had a real spider bonanza this fall in our garden. They're everywhere! Or at least the females are...

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  9. As a woman, this has me wishing Harvey Weinstein was a spider ...

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  10. Spiders have always fascinated (and absolutely terrified!) me. I am amazed that the species has survived this long - it would surely be much safer for those poor males if they were all gay!
    I am always in trepidation at the approach of autumn...but this year (touch wood) the huge male house spiders haven't strayed far from our conservatory - yet!!
    There was a time when one scuttled across my bed when I was sitting upon it...needless to say, I slept on the sofa for the next three weeks!!

    Many thanks for this...sent a tingle down my spine...;))

    Have a Great Sunday!

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  11. Sure wouldn't want to be a male spider. Have to be a monk or have one real good thrill.

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  12. I've never seen spiders mate, but we have plenty f spiders over here too these days.

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  13. Life goes on, as they say, even for spiders. I used to get a lot of spiders in the house but since acquiring Charlie the Cat there seem to have been fewer. Perhaps it's the lack of flies that has driven then to more fruitful areas.

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  14. : )))

    Have not seen any lately. Knock on wood!!

    All that activity for the world to see.. these spiders have no shame!!

    ; ))

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  15. Very well written. I agree with you that such guests like fat male spiders aren't wanted anywhere...

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  16. Life goes on in the big and the small.

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  17. This was so well written:)
    Poor Mr. Spider.

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  18. Very interesting, I did not know these details and my house gets a lot of spiders!

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  19. ...spiders and I have never been friends.

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  20. Goosebumps. Brrr, spiders... anything with more than four legs gives me the creeps (poor spider-guy, though).

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  21. Tease the time. Maybe I've just gotten lucky so far, but both the places I've lived have always been associated with spiders deciding Halloween time is the time to be big, creepy, and spooky. haha

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  22. "The air is heavy with the smell of sex and death." What a brilliant opening! And such powerful descriptions of nature in action. I rarely see spiders in my apartment, but when I do, I tend to let them slide. I figure they're one of the good guy insects. I hope I'm right..

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  23. what a fitting post with Halloween on the horizon!!! You certainly set the atmosphere with your words, well done.

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  24. We've got lots of spiders here, now, and some extra-large webs in the yard. As long as I don't walk face-first into one of those big webs, I'm fine with them. I like to watch the spiders, and in early morning, when a bit of dew glistens from their webs, they look quite beautiful.

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  25. Well, your first sentence gave me chills enough -- I actually don't mind spiders. They are intensely creative, no?

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  26. Interesting write up ,i imagined you observing this creature so fondly and smile grew on my face!

    yesterday when i was heading to kitchen from our veranda ,removed the curtain to step outside and mr spider got down front of my face hanging straight ,i did not want to pass quickly by breaking his rope so i had to sta and wait until he moves up or side ,but he decided to land on plant pot beside the fence of veranda .

    i find them helpful in decreasing the mosquitoes so i often leave their webs until they grow moch to deal with (how selfish)

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  27. I won't get into how very Scorpio this post is but you know what I'm talking about.

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  28. I figure they're one of the good guy insects. I hope I'm right..


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