You know how they say when you time travel you shouldn’t change anything, because you could change everything that follows? The same is true of nature. If you change the habitat, for example add a little pond for frogs to eat your slugs, you might end up with water spiders.
Water spiders?! Yes, water spiders. I have yet to identify this one. I thought maybe it was dead. It was nearly as big as my little frogs. Then I googled “water spiders” and found out there are indeed water spiders that eat tadpoles. Oh no you don’t. I scooped it up and put it in the grass. Are those baby spiders on its back? Is this a wolf spider? I see they do that. Anyway, no frogs for you!
The raccoons had a holiday weekend hootenanny last night. Drunk on hummingbird nectar, they had the bright idea to tear my National Wildlife Federation birdhouse off of the tree! and pry open the metal plate on the back! presumably to get to wren eggs. Impressive! But the joke is on you, masked bandits. Wrens make dummy nests! No eggs for you!
I think today I’ll stay safe and cool inside and work on my Halloween cardigan. We are watching Joe Bob’s Last Drive In — Uncle Sam because that’s what we do.
Okie in Ohio 
Stupid racoons! That spider is terrifying.
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It really is. You should’ve seen it spasm when I scooped it up in a cat food can. I ran screaming to the grass!
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Holy Moly……don’t mess around with Mother Nature…..as long as they don’t get in the house!!!
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My oh my! Never have seen anything like that spider. If those are baby spiders, there seem to be some on the legs, too. Otherwise, it looks to be dressed up for a very fancy-dress Spiders Ball! If it eats tadpoles, I wonder if it might also eat mosquito larva? I mean how many tadpoles could a spider eat? Even one that big! Where’s a good spider authority when you need one?!?! Setting the spider and raiding raccoons aside, love the pick of your sweet frogs cooling themselves in your pond! What a sweet threesome.
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Scary but impressive. I suppose there’s never a dull moment.
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The frogs thank you!
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Holy crap – that spider is terrifying! You are braver than I am. And jerk racoons! So glad they didn’t get any bird eggs. Whew! I love hearing about your menagerie – you have a lot going on there!
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I could definitely use a hand with keeping my slug population under control, but I’m not sure I have anywhere suitable for a pond. And I definitely don’t want to risk that spider in the garden. Now I quite fancy raccoons but that’s probably because we don’t have them here 😀
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Your wildlife has gone wild, ha! I do not like water spiders – ick! As far as raccoons, it seems like we are always in a battle with them. They had a party in our trash and we had to set up some type of bungee cord system to stop all the late evening parties!
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