I've been spending time outdoors every evening after dark, generally in search of silkmoths and other lepidopterans that work the night shift, and, more often than not, looking for lightning bugs, which have been slow to get going. As I searched, this large (almost two inches long) orb-weaving spider showed bright in my headlamp, her eight eyes casting an eerie reflection. I liked the pattern on her abdomen, kind of a face and, I hoped, a field mark that would make her easy to identify. Alas, no such luck. I really do need to learn the spiders—this is a common lament about lots of groups of plants and animals—but I think in the interim, I'm just going to have to send this picture off to one of the websites dedicated to the araneids. While I wait for a reply, I will, like the spider, watch and wait. And photograph. Her prey, for better or worse, is past waiting.