Misty morning, damp, so damp the water vapour from the warming land is hanging visibly in the air, curling around us. It has settled in a beautiful way on the myriad of cobwebs. A & F take their time this morning examining them and looking for the spiders. F's interest lasts a few minutes on Long Road before friends are spotted in the distance. A wants to look at each and every one. On the return journey we stop to watch one spider at work blobbing glue with its abdomen, weaving silk to glue with legs and heaving the silk to the next anchor point.
We notice two types of cobweb, the traditional spiral web and the web which looks like a woven hammock. I wonder what spider species makes the second type, and in my search have come across The Arachnological Society and get drawn into scientific research into the strength of spider silk. Its pretty strong stuff, in fact a web line in our garden strung from a tree is currently supporting a small sunflower, which would slump if not suspended in this way.
http://wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Main_Page
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