Shy spiders

In the excitement over our recent trip to Iceland, I have been neglecting home in the fairest of all boroughs. So here’s a little taste of Brooklyn to remind you where I spend most of my time.

Yeah. Spiders in my back yard, the Back 40 (inches), are a constant. Jumping spiders, crab spiders, orb-web weaving spiders, and…

The square metal columns that support my building’s balconies provide an anchor for more than a dozen sheetweb-building spiders. They spin their triangular, horizontal webs between wall and column, and use the narrow gap between the building’s brick facing and the columns for their cylindrical hidey-holes.
The spiders themselves are very wary. Look closely. They usually retreat deep into their webby retreats when I get closer, so I can’t tell you much more about them.
That’s right, there are more than a dozen of these in the Back 40, and with all the BQE-particulate (don’t ask), the webs look really, really messy. But, being a bit tidiness-challenged myself, I am not complaining about these neighbors.
(Special bonus pic from the archives)