Selected photos by Rod Crawford and Laurel Ramseyer from our 7 May 2018 spider collecting trip to sites along Centralia-Alpha Road, 4.5 miles west of Alpha, Lewis County, Washington. We visited a 2006 clearcut with exceptionally diverse spider fauna, then sampled a nearby well-grown western hemlock forest and ended the day at Alpha Cemetery. Largely due to the first site, we recorded an impressive 47 spider species from the area including some very interesting records. Be sure to check out Laurel's account of the day too!

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Aerial view of main sites (not cemetery)       (Lewis County, 2016)	Gate into private, but open, timberland           © Rod Crawford
Western thatching ant nest         © Laurel Ramseyer	Grassy surface between young Douglas-fir           © Rod Crawford
Overcast with "the odd chink of blue"     © Rod Crawford	Later we had clear sky over the clearcut           © Rod Crawford
Dicentra formosa was common       © Rod Crawford	It had evidently rained briefly before we arrived             © Laurel Ramseyer
Webs on the ground were very wet    © Rod Crawford	Most belonged to juvenile funnel-weavers          © Laurel Ramseyer
Ozyptila pacifica from leaf litter          © Rod Crawford	I found a small amount of very rich alder litter                 © Rod Crawford
Even thin moss on alders was rich      © Laurel Ramseyer	Tiny, but mature, harvestman Hesperonemastoma       © Laurel Ramseyer
Iris blooming in clearcut             © Rod Crawford	Scene of the crime            © Laurel Ramseyer
Grassy roadside verge            © Rod Crawford	Grass in sunlight finally dried enough to sweep             © Rod Crawford
Tall stand of western hemlock          © Rod Crawford	Much of the hemlock stand is shady              © Rod Crawford
Fern-rich understory              © Rod Crawford	A sunny glade in the hemlock stand                 © Rod Crawford
Laurel found hemlocks draped with rich moss       © Rod Crawford	A stretch of grass-shrub understory                      © Rod Crawford
Rod examining a "gate spider"          © Laurel Ramseyer	Pimoa altioculata's debris-encrusted egg sac             © Laurel Ramseyer
Cemetery shed was much too clean for good spiders  © Rod Crawford	Alpha Cemetery was mostly devoid of habitat            © Rod Crawford
But Laurel found some pine cones to tap    © Rod Crawford	The cones fell from non-native pines outside the fence      © Laurel Ramseyer
Mt. Rainier intermittently visible on our way home    © Rod Crawford	Sun begins to set as we come into Seattle            © Rod Crawford

This page last updated 29 June, 2018