Spider Collector's Journal: 2025

Here's the 35th page of narratives of fun (and not so fun) trips to collect spiders for research at the Burke Museum, some accompanied by capable field volunteers: Laurel Ramseyer and new recruits. Most also appeared in Scarabogram, newsletter of "Scarabs: The Bug Society." Dates of field trips head each paragraph. Maps showing the location of sites within Washington state follow the grid system outlined in the Washington Spider Checklist. RETURN TO INDEX

Where you see this button in a field trip account, click it to get a page of collecting site photos!

28 II 2025: Laurel warned me that some field weather was near, and we both decided on the Randle area (White Pass Highway, eastern Lewis County), where I had a trip plan and 10 old records as a head start. We went south the "back way" through Elbe and arrived on schedule; I had 4 pre-selected sites E and SE of the town, and we started with Silver Creek Cemetery. Laurel got 7 identifiable species in grave vases, I added 6 from conifer foliage, and we both checked out service sheds for 3 more. Laurel's shed had wasps on it, while mine had western boxelder bugs! Then ho for a giant grassy field around tiny Gibbs Lake, SE of Randle. Alas, at this season the field is a marsh! I added 3 species sweeping grass (and dodging cutleaf blackberry) right at the less-wet fringe; Laurel added 3 more from a rock outcrop across the road. Up a side road, I found a little more good conifer foliage (though a promising tree farm was posted), adding 4 for a total so-far of 26. By this time we were getting decidedly warm; fortunately our next stop was shady.
Not far north of our marsh, a side road went between the Cowlitz River and a rocky bluff, giving access to a delightfully mossy and leaf-littery fringe of maple with some alder. I sifted 9 species from the litter (including a Walckenaeria I don't recognize), while Laurel got 13 species sifting moss at the other end of the car. Ferns on the bluff face and webs on the guardrail added respectively 2 and 1 that were different. We now had 46 species!
I had one preselected site left, north of the road to the cemetery on national forest land, where I hoped to find better conifer foliage. No such luck, but Laurel added Theridion californicum from salal. On our way out, we stopped at the local high school where we each added one species from window frames, Laurel's being a Phidippus she had to rear. This winter trip netted us 49 species, and 9 of the 10 old records were different making 58! And now it was time for a pilgrimage. In the latter part of the 1980s Mt. St. Helens project, our team often drove in to the Pumice Plain from Randle, and stopped to eat on the way home at an out-of-town burger joint, the Huff-n-Puff. It's still there! And the burgers are OK, too, with delicious shakes.

Hold on to your hats, another field year begins!

This page last updated 24 March, 2025