Wednesday 1 October 2008

Web Rage

So I’m sat in the car outside the chip shop, waiting for Mum to emerge with our supper, when I notice that, stretched between the wing mirror and the side of the window of my door, are two spiderwebs, one slung behind the other as if to catch prey if the first breaks. Ingenious, I think. A rather rotund spider is wandering about on the one nearest the car, checking for midgies; it finds one, and hastens back into the left side of the recess behind the mirror to have its own supper.

Halfway along the top, a pair of wee spindly legs pokes out, and a much smaller spider emerges, very hesitantly. It steps out onto the second web, exploring. Well, that explains the ‘double web’ I think.

Suddenly, from the right hand side of the mirror, another larger spider rushes out onto the web. Obviously, the small spider’s footsteps have set the web thrumming, alerting the other to the presence of Something For Tea. Small spider freezes at the sight of the bigger one, which advances slowly and menacingly. I begin to think there will be carnage…

Smallest spider makes a dash for the top of the mirror.

Bigger spider goes in pursuit, and it looks like it will soon catch up. I’m almost biting my nails, willing the small one to go faster. It reaches the top and with true spidery ingenuity, flings itself off over the back, abseiling rapidly down the finest of thread to dangle six inches below the mirror, out of sight of the bigger spider. Perplexed (I don’t think the bigger spider is particularly intelligent) the latter seems to shrug, and heads back to its own side of the mirror, vanishing into the gap behind the glass.

Small spider dangles in the wind for a while, a little like Indiana Jones on the broken rope bridge, before clambering back up to the wing mirror and cautiously tiptoeing past the others to its own lurking spot.

Mum wonders why I’m chuckling.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! i LOVE the idea of indiana jones as a tiny spider. ROFL!

Anonymous said...

a short film! :-D i love it ... i actually could hear a sound track :-D

Anonymous said...

High adventure this! Your car is a real wildlife magnet. Well, probably all of ours are but the difference is you have the eye to see it and the wit to chronicle it.

Jude

Sue Deere said...

Brilliant! Happy to hear the small spider survived.

Had a similar experence yesterday at Longleat. Tiny spider inside passenger window...put window down to photograph rhino - then quickly put window back up before entering tiger enclosure and small spder slipped outside the car! He swung wildly from a thread for a while but was eventually lost forever in with the tigers...eeek!