There are miraculous happenings and amazing natural wonders right in our own backyards that oftentimes we miss or don't notice because we are not looking closely enough or perhaps because we are going too fast.

Last spring one of the Ventana staff photographers was on the UCSC campus trying to photograph deer. He went down into one of the ravines on campus, and instead of deer, stumbled upon something more amazing. Something he had never seen before, and I would venture to say, something most of us have never seen even though they are not rare and even though they have likely been right in front of our eyes on numerous hikes in the woods.

I had to go see for myself.

What he found, hanging from bushes and small trees about five feet off the ground, were filmy dome spiders (Neriene radiata) and their webs. The domed web, pictured on our cover, looks like an upside-down bowl, about the size of a cereal bowl. Its weaver, a small spider, hangs upside down in the center under the dome and waits for dinner.

Spiders are among nature’s finest architects. I marvel at the lovely traps they weave, artfully combining form and function.

I have since learned many things about this and other spiders. Filmy dome spiders are found throughout the United States. I learned that spider silk is stronger than steel thread of the same thickness. And despite the existence of a few venomous spiders, most are as sweet as Charlotte (remember Charlotte’s Web?).

But the most important morsel that I've taken from this chance encounter is the knowledge that sometimes the extraordinary is all around us. We just have to take the time to really see it.

—Debbie Bulger

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