Black and Yellow Garden Spider and Egg Sac

I'm always fascinated whenever I find a Black and Yellow Garden Spider in my garden. This is perhaps the 3th or 4th one I have found in the past few years. Yesterday's find was unexpected as this spider wasn't in the area of my garden where I usually find them. I was thinning my white flower bed when I spied it in the tall stalks of a white Obiedent Plant (a.k.a.: False Dragonhead). What was more exciting to me though (instead of the garden spider), was the brownish covered egg sac I found nearby! This was a first find of such for me. I noticed a brown ball-shaped object, in a tangle of silken threads, which, at a first glance, reminded me of a Goldenrod Gall, but this seemed somewhat larger than a gall found on a Goldenrod stalk. After laying eggs on a silken bed the Garden Spider will create a ball shaped sac and cover it with an outer wrapping of brownish silk. When hatched in the spring this sac will apparently contain about 1000 minute spiders! For more information on Black and Yellow Garden spiders and the egg sacs which they create please go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_garden_spider

For more postings on spiders please go to: http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2007/09/european-garden-spider.html
http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2007/09/black-and-white-spider.html