January 2 - Spider Nursery
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

Last autumn, the beautiful black-and-yellow garden spiders stretched their webs across meadow grasses and weeds just about anywhere there was a possibility of catching flying insects. As autumn faded, so did these web weavers, but their legacy lives on. Somewhere near the web, female garden spiders hung an inchlong, round to pear-shaped sack, attached firmly to tall plants or grasses. Inside were as many as 1,400 eggs that hatched into tiny spiderlings. Safe from prying eyes, these young spiders spend the winter, emerging in spring to start a new generation. Then they will crawl away or parachute to a new location on thin silken threads thrown to the wind. Some will be eaten by hungry predators; others will meet a different fate. A few will survive. Until spring they are safe and sound in their winter nursery.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.