I first noticed this lovely lady where I work a week or so before taking her portrait. She was roughly 5 feet from me on the other side of a hedge, so the photo was taken at maximum zoom and is not as good as it would have been if I had been able to get closer. She had already relocated once from a salvia bush closer to the sidewalk - she must have been disturbed by all the foot traffic and relocated. This second web was suspended under an overhanging branch of a medium-sized bur oak tree. With all that open space to build in, this web got much larger than her previous one.

I estimate that her body was somewhere over an inch long and her "leg-span" must have been at least 4 inches. These are apparently not all that rare, but I had never seen a web-weaving spider that large and was immediately fascinated.

I came back to work the following Monday and she was gone. Her web had debris in it and I could find no sign of her anywhere nearby. I don't know whether the heavy storms that weekend got her or perhaps she had a run-in with someone who doesn't like spiders. I'm hoping she merely relocated due to the storm or the stress of the constant human traffic nearby. I miss her - it was neat to have this unusual "mascot" of sorts to say hello to on the way in and out of work every day. I'm glad I remembered to take the camera to work before she disappeared.