Rewilding My Lot

For weeks I have been watching with interest a large Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) who made her home just outside our garage door. I have seen her enhance and repair her large web, eat insects that she wrapped in silk, and produce two egg sacs two weeks apart [first, second]. The photo above was taken just after she produced the second egg sac.

Apparently her work is done and she has died. Once the second egg sac was produced, she never really looked strong after that and her web was disintegrating. Over a period of a few days, her posture just didn’t look good and then one morning she was immobile and hanging from one leg.

I put her body and web on the ground in the nearby pollinator garden. The egg sacs are still in place in a nearby oak tree. I don’t know if spiderlings will emerge this fall or wait until spring (the timing varies according to climate).