When walking along bush paths, especially early in the morning, I often walk through large spider webs spun across the path. Not infrequently, I end up with a spider in my hair or on my clothes.

Today I spotted the web and its occupant in time to avoid a collision! The spider was a Garden Orb Weaver (Eriophora sp). This individual was quite lovely, with red upper legs changing to black as they reached its body. Look at that cute furry head!

This was a large spider, its body about 2 cm long. We often see Garden Orb Weavers in our area, but I haven’t seen one with this colouring before. They come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colours. (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone decides to do more research into these spiders and split up the classification a bit.) Here’s a side view of the one I saw yesterday:

I carefully walked around the web, using a tried-and-true method of waving a stick in front of me to detect stray strands of silk, and photographed the spider from the other side:

Garden Orb Weaving Spiders aren’t keen to bite you. If they do bite you, the symptoms are usually mild, usually limited to pain and swelling at the site of the bite. If you have worse symptoms or are concerned, seek medical advice. I haven’t yet been bitten. Long may that happy state of affairs last!

Location of the spider: Manly Dam Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°46’51.5″S 151°14’51.0″E.

What about the birds, you may ask? Since this is primarily a blog about birds, where do they fit in? Birds do eat these spiders. Recently, an Australian Noisy Miner was extremely interested in a large Orb Weaver outside my window. The bird approached along the telephone line, then leapt into the air and hovered about a metre away from the spider. For some reason, the bird abandoned the attack. Maybe there wasn’t enough room for the bird to fly in, grab the spider, then swoop away before hitting the window.