house-proud

this young female Nephila constructed her orb-web close to a chicken run with the result that her web became polluted with feather dross when ever the wind was from the north. She would then meticulously remove all the debris, accumulating it into balls which were either added to her garbage line or more frequently forcefully ejected from site (the 2 night photos from the evening before the bulk of the photos were taken). There was a single male (see http://www.ispotnature.org/node/682933 ) in attendance who appeared to be enormous but was in fact within normal limits being around 9 mm in length, it was the female at about 15 mm that was rather small. There was also an ectoparasitic spider associated with her web.