The day I saw the Choughs (see last Friday’s blog Choughed), I was actually in Barry looking for a rare spider. Our local spider expert had found them in the garden centre attached to a local department store so I figured it was worth a look. I did manage to find lots of that particular spider’s webs (the spider was Badumna longinqua; an example of its lace-like web is shown below) but the beasties themselves proved more elusive.

I thought I would buy some potting mix while I was there but, as I had a one mile uphill walk from the train to where I live, I didn’t want to carry anything too heavy, so I tried to pick up one of the 10-litre bags to check its weight. In doing so I uncovered a large spider that had been lurking unseen between two stacks of bags. I thought I’d finally found my target and got as many photos as I could before it scurried back under the pile.

Unfortunately, once I had a closer look at my images, I could see it wasn’t the right spider. What I had found was a Giant house-spider, one of the Eratigena species that can only be positively identified by microscopic examination of the spider’s genitals – and that definitely was not going to happen. As their common name infers, these beauties like to live in our houses, tucked away somewhere you’d probably never see them except when you’re having a spring clean … though I’ve just been reading that the males like to go wandering in search of a female in the late summer/early autumn.