Spiders & Scopes

[casstony]

We tolerate all kinds of spiders around our place since they help keep the other bugs under control, but this is taking the friendship a little too far. This protective parent really did not want to get off my scope but I wasn't brave enough to observe with it on there. A hundred baby Huntsman crawling over the scope wouldn't be good either.

[jjjnettie]

Have you worked out what you're going to do with mum and offspring?
I haven't used my scope for so long I'd hate to think what's living in it.

[Alchemy]

im thinking a short length of 2x4 or chemical warfare.

ving and some others would no doubt like these critters, but no place for them on the scopes:mad2:

[iceman]

eww huntsmen, and lots of little ones! ugh! They'll grow bigger and scare the willies out of you one night :) I'm with Alchemy ;)

[Ric]

Eek :scared:

Around my scope they are asked to leave nicely and peacefully on the end of a broom, if they dont heed the warning then it's open season.

Cheers

[OneOfOne]

My attitude to "outdoor" spiders that make it "inside" is to perform some natural selection. If you catch and release the ones that get inside, you are putting genetic selection pressure on the species to prefer offspring that have a tendency to come into houses. I prefer to put negative selection on these by terminating the genetic line. That way, only spiders that prefer to stay outside are the ones that will be allowed to procreate! After many generations, spiders won't come inside :thumbsup:

[§AB]

My place is massively infested with spiders - huntsmen, white tails, red backs, and those scary black things that hide in gaps in your window and pergola. Come to my house at night - the pergola roof is laced with huge cobwebs, the elevated border around my pool features cobwebs all the way around and in almost every nook and cranny lives a spider!

Sometimes after leaving my scope to cool, ill come back to find a strand of spider web stretching from the fence to my scope. Just the other night, after taking an hour break, i come back to find a cute little perfect circular web, complete with spider, erected between my 8x50 finder and the Quikfinder!

[jjjnettie]

I was driving the other day through Christmas chaos traffic and a Huntsman came out of nowhere and settled on my cheek. I could feel it there and could just see it out of the corner of my eye.
I handled it quite well I thought. Cool Calm and Collected.
I couldn't brush it off because I didn't want it to
1. get squished accidently on my face EWWWW
2. fall off and go down my blouse and cause me to freak out and have an accident. EEEKKK:eyepop:
3. get tangled up in my hair

I evicted it at the first traffic light.

[SkySearcher]

If that was on my scopw, I would roll up a newspaper give it a solid whack,
then run from the room screaming like a little girl
:eek:

[casstony]

I was in a hurry to observe so the spider was terminated. It was a torturous experience for us both though, trying to whack the critter hard enough to do damage but not hurt the scope. I did carry the eggs to the garden though.

I'm glad my dob was well sealed against vermin - imagine the spider nesting on the mirror.

[goober]

Wow, the stars would look good with an 8 vane spider :)

[casstony]

Glorious spider nebula seen for the first time - so big, don't know how they could have missed it :)

[Ric]

Jeanette, a Huntsman on your face :eyepop: and you were cool, calm and collected. :eyepop:

:bowdown: I am in awe of you, I don't know what I would do but cool, calm and collected would not come into the situation more like that TV add that used to be on. :lol:

Cheers

[GrahamL]

I don't mind huntsmen at all .. they and there eggs can be moved pretty easily..its no mistake ..imo.. you find them around us ..as I think were pretty messy critters whos lifestyles are always likely to provide food sources for these large hunters of the insect world :)

yeah I can understand the spider thing though ..I loathe grasshoppers
they are ******* nasty ****** of things who are just freakin
not of this world !!!!!

[PCH]

Years ago when I first came to Australia, I was driving down the freeway one beautiful sunny morning, and I decided to pull the sun visor down. A great big hairy huntsman, - biggest spider I'd ever seen, dropped out and fell onto my lap, and instantly started to move in that way that huntsmen have :P

I can't lay claim to being in any way as cool and calm as Jeanette. I've never liked spiders at all, and would happily see them all annihilated immediately, so I was in absolute panic as this thing was zipping about all over my lower regions. The car was driving very erratically at this stage and I eventually pulled over into the stopping lane and fell out of the car, brushed frantically to remove the spider from my clothing and then set about stomping it into a million pieces - much to the amazement of passing motorists. George wouldn't have made as much fuss slaying the dragon :D

I checked behind seats and above the visors and stuff for years as a result of that scare. I hate those suckers and I don't mind admitting it. I don't carr much for the selective procreation treatment either, as earlier suggested - I'm happy to risk it and splat the lot of them.:thumbsup:

Cheers,

[ving]

i agree with both halves of this... I like spiders (as photographis subjects) but there is no place for them on telescopes :)

[TheCrazedLog]

Thats the way I operate. It gets given a chance to go quitely. After that...

Exception to that rule is cockroaches: Inside, they're fair game. Oh and any spider which is harmful.. eg redback/trapdoor/funnelweb. They get no quarter.

Anthony

[§AB]

This morning during my session I found at least 10 redbacks scattered around my pool, a couple of white tails, a huntsmen, several orb weavers and a few black house spiders in my backyard and around the house.

[Terry B]

Very brave.
I don't think I would have stayed as calm.
The worst I have had was walking outside in thongs to turn of my automatic watering system at night in the rain (at a previous house) and having a frog jump onto my foot. I thought it was a snake and broke the world high jump record at the time. Shame there was nobody to film it to verify the record.:P

[casstony]

My wife had a similar experience to Jeanette but didn't react calmly; I had to rescue the deserted car from the middle of the street with engine still running, headlights on and door wide open. She typically panics in a crisis.