Notes from the Naturalist...
For me, September is
spider time! I get so excited when I'm out on toddler nature walks and start to notice all the flawlessly-constructed orb webs. Inevitably children refer to the spiders as 'he', and I find myself saying, "Well, actually, most of the spiders we see are girls!" I then quickly add, "They have fangs that kill the prey caught in the web - injecting chemicals that turn the inside of it into a bug-smoothie! And! Did you know they re-make their house
every day?
And!!! Here's something else that's crazy - they EAT the old web first!" Children
LOVE hearing these facts. Even our little 2-and-a-half year olds hear all this and pause, pondering with wide eyes what it's like to live a spider's life.
I have no idea what it's like to live a spider's life, but I feel the same sense of awe and magic when I watch one eating it's silken web to methodically create a new one. And I feel enormously lucky to be out walking the dog early on a misty morning and get to see a perfect, glistening web catching the sun. My job, most days, is about coordinating programs and connecting the pieces all together. But every once in a while I get to stop and truly notice how perfectly creative nature can be. Those days are by far my favorite days....
Chrissy Larson, Coordinator for Environmental Education