Insect and Spider Identification: CLOSED: Male black widow???, 1 by newhobby

newhobby wrote:
While feeding the birds, which I haven't done in about a month and was chastised for yesterday by a little birdie, I found this guy and another spider who was very dead sitting in the bird feeder! Needless to say, I will be extra careful next time I pull the lid off the feeder! Any clues what he is? I thought maybe a male black widow but he is so brown on his back with funny markings. .He's already spinning a web in the plastic container I put him in....ugh! My skin won't stop prickling knowing how close my hands came to him!!