Spider Eyes

The other night just after sundown, the first night of a cool snap, I asked Rebecca if she had ever seen spider eyes at night... she grabbed her leg to see if I was pulling it, and answered with a skeptical "no"

I grabbed a couple of led flashlights and headed down the studio path to a large dark area covered with leaves and showed her how to hold the light under one eye and look over the barrel of the flashlight. (if the light is held more than an inch or so from the eyes, you will not be able to see the very directional reflection from the spider eyes)

The bright spots in the image are just a few of the fifty or so spider eye reflections visible in the same area using eyes and an LED flashlight.

That and the nights following have been good viewing... that first night, looking at an area about 30' square showed at least a hundred sparkling jewels spread across the fallen leaves.

When she asked how I knew they were spiders, I told her to pick one of the sparkles and move in until she could see the source, and, sure enough, when she got within a foot, she could see the tiny (1/4" long body) spider, she reverted into a delighted child, running down the beam to discover one after another.

My mate then asked me how long I had known about this. When I answered "most of my life*" she offered her opinion that it was cruel of me to have withheld such great information from her for the 20+ years we have been together.

So, we are passing on this magic... led flashlights and the darker it is, the better... hold the light so the beam is as close to your line of sight as possible... and share it with the kids... prevent arachnophobia, pass it on!

*To be more specific, I learned about these reflections shortly after I moved to Texas in the 1960's. I mentioned to a friend that it seemed that there must be many more accidents on Texas rural highways because of the amount of "glitter" from broken glass that seemed to be scattered everywhere across the pavement.

"Oh," he replied, "Thats not glass, those are from spiders crossing the road." At that time, such information was a bit much to accept on faith, so, the next night, driving home from the airport on a rural road, I pulled over to the shoulder, left the headlights on and followed one of the points of light which I had assumed was a glass refelection to it's source and found a small spider, then another, and another. The reflections were all from spider eyes.