It was a lovely morning when I first spotted a flashy, huge web - over 3' across - in our backyard. As I approached and cautiously looked for its architect I could see none. I decided to get my camera and come back. When I did the web's owner had appeared. I spent a good hour capturing images of her, but all had something wrong with them, mostly a bad angle which was caused by a nearby shrub. Finally she moved a wee bit allowing me to get a few frames off. I figured that I'd come back the next day to see if I could do any better. That night a fierce wind came up, and that was the end of our spider. She didn't rebuild. When I started to process the remaining images I had a pleasant surprise. I hadn't even noticed, but while I was intent on shooting her a very cautious lover was approaching from the upper left. You can just see him as he sizes up his chances... :-)

The "Golden" part of the spider's name comes from the color of the silk that she uses - a golden color. You can see this very effectively as the sun glints off of it along the top border of the image toward the left by the male spider. It is also known as the Banana Spider.