Queasy Around Spiders

Wish I wasn't scared of spiders, it's been a life long thing, but I do try to both respect and ignore them.

Checking over the plants this morning, on a pot containing a couple of dahlia tubers I thought I saw a quite beautiful fungi, about the size of a bantam egg. Without thinking I touched it and it exploded with hundreds of moving 'pin heads', I've blown a pic up of them. I'm guessing I've got nothing to worry about especially if they eat the aphids.

I'm wondering what will happen to them now? They are literally the size of a pin head.

 

I'm not 100%sure but I think these tiny masses of spiders that you see now go on to be the ones that drape everything in webs in those autumn mornings.
The days when you walk up the garden first thing in the morning and you end up walking into them or are covered in dew after a foggy morning.

 

Araneus diadematus or garden spider. They are the classic spider web makers and you often find these balls of baby spiders around this time of year. I can see why they might be the stuff of nightmares but they are fascinating little things.

 

@Jenny_Aster
Sounds as if you came across a mass of fairly newly hatched spiderlings. They scatter like that when disturbed so no one predator gets the whole lot, they have a fairly high casualty rate.

 

Thanks for the replies. One was the bane of my life last year, it insisted on building its mammoth web across the rubbish bins. We do have rather a lot of them, so I hope they're lucky spiders

They are fascinating in creepy sort of way. It looks like some have rebuilt their nest.

 

I'm not a lover of spiders, in fact any insect that crawls.

I took this back in 2015 having come across it in a Potentilla hedge.

 

You've got to hand it to them, they are fantastic architects. That's a huge amount of eggs, imagine if the all survived.

 

I remember having a nest of them in a plant near our back door in a previous house. My girls were very young at the time, and were fascinated by the fact that if you touched a leaf very gently nearby, they all scattered in a beautiful pattern. I had to explain that it wasn't fair to keep doing that though!
Younger daughter is scared of them though, which is a great pity.
I was terrified of moths because of an old chair of my Gran's in my bedroom when I was young. My Mum didn't like windows being opened [don't ask!] and there was regular bouts of them in my bedroom, nesting in the chair, which I couldn't then get out of the windows. When I had my first daughter, she found one in her bedroom, and treated it as her pet - getting down beside it and talking to it. She was fascinated by it, just like the spiders, and saw no difference between a furry moth and a cat, or any other creature.
I knew I couldn't pass on my stupid fear to her, and it helped me enormously seeing her picking them up to look at them. One of the ladies on the other forum also helped me get over it. I now have no fear of them at all.

 

I find giving them a name helps with the fear. I currently have 'Maud', a biggish house spider, pottering around the dining room. We speak, whenever I see her. Then there's 'Dennis' who lives in the bathroom, and 'Monica' who likes one of the bedrooms. 'Toddles' just tootles around the place.
Works for me.

 

I have a problem with any large insects, especially flying ones. Dragonflies completely freak me out! If they were birds I would be OK

 

If I put up Raft and Wasp spider pics up later in the year then I had better give a warning.
I have always loved spiders.

 

It's fluttery things indoors that give me the heeby-jeebies - craneflies/daddy-long-legs, moths, butterflies, birds. Not a problem outside.