Knees up, Mother Brown

I've spent several hours over the last three days just trying to take a photo of one spider. She's set up her web in an antique cabinet on my wall, where I can reach her easily. But she's too smart for me.

Cellar spider, Pholcus phalangoides. More legs than spider.

These spiders spin long, fragile, almost invisible lines of silk, in no particular pattern, stretching far from their resting place. I see patches where they have caught prey here and there, but most of the lines seem to be a warning system. So the problem with taking her photo was that as soon as I got anywhere near, she went into hiding. Even cautiously positioning my flash attachment a foot away, with no other movement, made her leave.

When the flash hits her directly, she looks grey. In normal light, she's pale brown.

Or maybe she decides not to run away. She has another strategy: a touch on her web, far away from where she waits, and she begins to dance. She vibrates and spins rapidly, too fast even for my old eyes, let alone the camera.

... And whirling round and round. Whirling round and round. Whirling, whirling, never twirling. Whirling round and round. (From children's version of "Knees up, Mother Brown".)

Setting the camera on autofocus sometimes works, if the background is right. Otherwise, since the spider is so pale, the camera decides I want the wood grain, or the leftover bits of web. With manual focus, I have to get close enough to see what I'm getting, and by then, she's gone. She's in cahoots with the camera.

This afternoon she moved to a spot where I could insert the camera and one hand, but couldn't see my screen. And the flash was already set up aiming sort of that way. So I set the camera on manual focus and took almost 100 blind shots; something would work, I hoped.

I got knees.

Knees up, Mother Brown

And hairy legs.

And shiny eyes.

It seems that the patterns on her abdomen are not on the surface, but the internal structures, seen through a traslucent skin. I'll have to find another one and take more photos to confirm this.