A little bit of research at bugguide.net revealed that these are baby orb weaver spiders.  Everywhere around the stairs they were spinning webs.  They were crawling on the ground and a few of them even tried to create a nest on my camera!  Of course, I couldn’t resist getting a closer look at them.

The kids got a big kick out of watching them, though Nelya was freaked out.  While we were watching them some of them even began spinning webs on us!  Of course they are harmless, but try telling my wife that.

  Here is a shot of one as it spun its web.  I also decided to get an even closer look at one for identification sake.

Of course, the vast majority of these baby spiders will not live to see a few days.  Numerous predators were waiting for them and the odds of survival are not that great.  Of the hundreds of baby spiders, perhaps only a couple will make it to adulthood.  Here is one that didn’t make it – victim to an awaiting spider (I think it is a sac spider).

Each of these spiders will likely eat several of the babies over the day and are just one of the dangers they will face during their first several weeks.

I also could not resist taking the opportunity to take my first video with the MP-E 65!

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