Another Great Blue Herron - Blackstone River in Uxbridge, MA
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Lake side campground host eating breakfast.
On the water visitor holding my hand. Given the time of year it is a Summer Azure. There is also a close relative that looks almost identical. It is the Spring Azure. That is found along with its cousin during April, and May they have lovely blue topsides to their wings that match their given names.
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What’s the spider, some spiny woodland spider?
Hard for to tell from the photo but the web looks right.
It was one I wasn’t familiar with. At first, I thought it was a giant Crab spider much bigger than normal, but on closer inspection it looked more like some kind of Orb spider. except it didn’t have the zig zag writing in the web like one of the writing spiders.
Ewww!
Aren’t crab spiders much more into hanging out at flowers and ambushing their prey?
You are right about that there is even one named a giant crab spider. There are a lot of spiders called crab spiders when I did a search of images with the majority of them are ambush predators. The one I was referring to is a common web making spider in the woods here in the SE. In low light I have walked into their webs many times. Here are photos from an internet search showing the one I was referring to. Common names can be confusing. When I said giant, I meant exceptionally large when compared to the small web making spider in this photo.
Crab spider
What it’s web looks like.
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That’s the spider I thought it might be. I know them as spiny woodland, or spiny orb weaver, spider.
I’ve also put my face into many of their webs in my life. 
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Back when I spent a lot of time in the woods, those webs were in my face a lot.
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Dang! That’s a spider!
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I believe that’s a fishing spider. We have them in Minnesota. They get huge. They hover above the water and when a small fish swims by they dive into the water after them.
I had a fishing spider fall at my feet in my canoe on the Edisto River. About the size of a coffee saucer.
I do not like spiders but don’t kill them. This one was holding an egg case in her? fangs which were substantial but I knew she couldn’t use them on my bare feet.
My (insane) bow paddler picked her up by a leg and flipped her overboard. She landed on the water and ran for the bushes.
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I saw one on a rock in the Boundary Waters and put my hiking boot next to the spider for size comparison in a photo. It was as big as the front part of my boot. The fishing spiders don’t bother me.
