Field journal: First spiders of spring in Trinity-Bellwoods

This winter I have tried to get into the habit of getting a coffee and a pastry at the White Squirrel and going for walks around Trinity-Bellwoods, just to get out of the house. There haven’t been bugs, but there are sometimes Fancy Birds: finches (house or purple, I’m not sure), woodpeckers, and once a Cooper’s hawk. Today it was quite nice and to my surprise there were flies and midges in the air, red velvet mites crawling in the soil, and the first spiders out and about! Continue reading Field journal: First spiders of spring in Trinity-Bellwoods

Field journal: More spiders in pinecones

A nice routine I have fallen into over the past several months is spider-hunting while catching up on the podcast The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. And so

“Like Rodney Dangerfield, obsessive collectors get no respect. The word ‘trainspotter’, which refers to a railway enthusiast, is, in British English, synonymous with ‘loser’, and there is indeed something slightly tragic about someone who spends all their free time looking for things the rest of us find pointless.”

Me:

Me: ಠ___ಠ

Aaaanyway, here’s a bunch of spiders and whatnot I’ve found on recent winter excursions. Continue reading Field journal: More spiders in pinecones