Araneus diadematus
When (at some random point in my life) I (presumably) said: "Lord, let me be attractive to the females." I perhaps should have been explicit as to the species. My garden has been invaded by spiders (Araneus diadematus).
According to wikipedia:
The webs are built by the larger females who usually lie head down on the web, as in this photo, waiting for prey to get entangled in the web. The prey is then quickly captured and wrapped in silk before being eaten. Orb Spiders [another name for this type of spider] are said to eat their webs each night along with many of the small insects stuck to it. They have been observed doing this within a couple of minutes. A new web is then spun in the morning.
That said, I've seen those buggers perched in the same place day after day, waiting...
They're bloody everywhere! Up until the party there were four or five, alone, straddling the plants and dustbins in my yard. I had to disturb their webs to make room to put the bikes out there and cover them. Yesterday I went out to do a bit of trimming in the garden and spotted them all over the place and only disturbed a few.
The one in my pictures below (put behind a cut for any sensitive arachnophobes who may be reading this) spun her impressively large web straddling my roses so that I almost didn't see it when I entered my garden to pick some herbs for dinner. When I open my garden gate my eye-line is directly on the side so that the web is practically invisible. Using my herbs as anchor points alone there must be around 3 or 4 of them (including by far the largest of the bunch at what must be nearly two inches). I was careful, for now, not to disturb them, but I'm probably going to have to start controlling their web spinning a little if I ever want to be able to actually, y'know, move around in my garden.
Ever since I moved in here I've had a lot of bugs crawling around the house. Usually very small and nothing that's given me cause for concern. Of course, I've also had a lot more spiders knocking around (though nothing quite of the calibre of Boris). This garden invasion, however, is by far the most impressive arachnids. I'm just thankful they're not house spiders and let's leave it at that.
According to wikipedia:
The webs are built by the larger females who usually lie head down on the web, as in this photo, waiting for prey to get entangled in the web. The prey is then quickly captured and wrapped in silk before being eaten. Orb Spiders [another name for this type of spider] are said to eat their webs each night along with many of the small insects stuck to it. They have been observed doing this within a couple of minutes. A new web is then spun in the morning.
That said, I've seen those buggers perched in the same place day after day, waiting...
They're bloody everywhere! Up until the party there were four or five, alone, straddling the plants and dustbins in my yard. I had to disturb their webs to make room to put the bikes out there and cover them. Yesterday I went out to do a bit of trimming in the garden and spotted them all over the place and only disturbed a few.
The one in my pictures below (put behind a cut for any sensitive arachnophobes who may be reading this) spun her impressively large web straddling my roses so that I almost didn't see it when I entered my garden to pick some herbs for dinner. When I open my garden gate my eye-line is directly on the side so that the web is practically invisible. Using my herbs as anchor points alone there must be around 3 or 4 of them (including by far the largest of the bunch at what must be nearly two inches). I was careful, for now, not to disturb them, but I'm probably going to have to start controlling their web spinning a little if I ever want to be able to actually, y'know, move around in my garden.
Ever since I moved in here I've had a lot of bugs crawling around the house. Usually very small and nothing that's given me cause for concern. Of course, I've also had a lot more spiders knocking around (though nothing quite of the calibre of Boris). This garden invasion, however, is by far the most impressive arachnids. I'm just thankful they're not house spiders and let's leave it at that.