This reminds me how much I love winter, and the north.
I was pumping gas yesterday and I thought a fly was on my head,it brush it off, and it really was (a small but menacing)yellow/white puffy crab looking spider with dots. Disgusting.
By killing them you just broke the food chain for some other critter that would have used those 12 and their offspring to keep their young fed. I think you should immediately go out and buy some high quality bird feed (a 50 pound bag of sunflower seed chips should do it) and put it out for all of the critters that could go hungry now. They might forgive you if you do that right away.
