Araneus Diadematus

I just took this picture in our garden. It seems to be spiderseason right now...

I often run into spiderwebs, especially in the night, and then I fidget around in panic because the webs are everywhere and you think that the spider is sitting somewhere on your head. I think you know exactly what I mean ^^
Anyways, we have a lot of garden spiders "Araneus Diadematus" right now. I know those guys since I was little. I often catched some flies and threw them into their webs. (evil child ^^;).

Like most of the spiders these are normally hanging in the center of their web. Some day I discovered that if you blow upon the web slightly the spiders start to wiggle very hard. It looks so funny that I have to do it evey time when I see those spiders. I was told that the reason for all the wiggling is that if you blow upon the web the spiders think that there is an insect caught up in ther web. Wiggling heavily on the web makes the insect ensnarl in it even more. But then they recognize that there is no prey and they stop wiggling...I never observed that behavior with other spiders...

So if you ever see a "Araneus Diadematus", try blowing upon it...but not too strong cause then they might fall off their web. (it happens some time ^^)