Calvin Coolidge Flying Insect Massacre Bridge

A while back, on that most humid night, I went for a late-night walk. With my camera in tow, I strolled straight through town. There were people everywhere. They were mulling around, sitting on stoops, talking in overheated-insomnia-flavored hushed tones.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I had decided to walk across the Connecticut River on the Calvin Coolidge Bridge. It's a pretty long walk from my apartment. I think maybe the promise of a river breeze was the attraction that drew me there. The night was so hot and humid that any establishment in town, that was open, had frosted windows that were dripping with condensation.

I was on a bit of a photo hunt, but I couldn't find my tripod so the night-time long exposure pictures were difficult. I took this pretty nice one of the RT. 91 overpass:



Anyway, so I got to the bridge and I started walking across it right? Occasionally a car or a truck whizzed past, but for the most part, I was alone out there in the night. It was nice. The wide river below me was moving silently along in the dark, the street lights on the bridge just barely reached the surface, where their occasional sparkly reflections gave evidence to the current. I leaned against the railing and propped up my camera to try to take a few shots - nothing came out very worthwhile. Here's one in which the super long exposure brought to light much more than I could see with my own eyes in the dark:



I continued along across the bridge and my face went through one of those spider web strands. Don't you hate that? I kept walking while trying to get the sticky nuisance off of me. I made it just over the half-way point in the bridge when I noticed a big spider in a big web in the railing. I thought that was pretty cool that this spider managed to find this spot way up here above the river. I was just thinking about how there must be tons of flying insects attracted by the bright bridge lamps when I noticed another spider nearby in another web. And then another. And then another.

It wasn't long before it became clear to me that that entire railing of this bridge was festooned with webs. The spiders were large and fast and active and the webs were large too and there was barely a break in them anywhere. The bridge had been turned into one giant spider web. It was like an enormous fishing net, the bug-victims had no chance. Here's a picture that sort of gets across the idea (each of the little light specks is a spider), just imagine that the whole bridge looks like this: (click it)



I got creeped out, especially while remembering that I had been leaning up on the railing taking pictures. In the crazy sticky humidity, I suddenly felt like things were crawling all over me. Of course, they weren't but it was still creepy. Gross.

So, how did these spiders, these thousands of spiders, find this place? What brought them out in the middle of this cement bridge above the river? Did they figure it out? Were a few blown here and then a whole community was hatched? Was it word-of-mouth?

They took this man-made structure and turned it into a huge hunting death trap for flying insects. It's a giant trap. They use the lights on the bridge to lure in the bugs and ensnare them in multitudes. They could start an exporting business if they didn't eat all the product.

Spiders, man, what's up?

Next time you drive over that bridge - or probaby any bridge, keep in mind that it serves two purposes. That it is a whole universe of life and death unto itself. That it's kind of creepy and gross.