Tag Archives: Garden spider

319/366 Current critters

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by in autumn, insects, spiders

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Just a few of the little critters I’ve come across this week …

201114 lacewing

I can’t be entirely sure but this is probably Chrysoperla carnea, Britain’s most common Lacewing. Their transparent wings lend these creatures a fragile air so I was surprised to see one still out and about as these Lacewings usually find a cosy spot indoors to hibernate come the autumn weather.

I think these are Common wasps (Vespula vulgaris)  that I’m seeing frequently on and around Ivy, and basking in our rare glimpses of sunshine, but I don’t have any face-on shots to properly separate them from German wasps (Vespula germanica). At this time of year, these are likely to be male wasps, which apparently are not able to sting – only female queens and workers have the anatomy for that.

201114 earwig

We saw Earwigs hiding in umbellifer seedheads in a recent post (Insecting, 31 October). It seems they like to hide, though I’m not sure how effective this earwig’s hiding place is, its head tucked into a gorse seed but the length of its body exposed. Still, I doubt anyone – insect, bird or human – was going to argue with those pincers.

Spiders have been much in evidence lately. Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus) sit ready to pounce in their strategically strung webs, and, in the right photo, I only spotted the tiny, unidentified spider lurking under the Creeping thistle flower when I got home and started looking through my photos.

130/366 Spiderlings

09 Saturday May 2020

Posted by in nature, spiders, spring

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At first sight, from several feet away, I thought this splodge on the side of a building was a dollop of bird poo … but then I noticed it was moving. So, of course, I immediately got out my camera and peered closer.

200509 garden spiderlings (1)

They were spider babies, hundreds of them, of the species Araneus diadematus, commonly known as Garden spiders. Both as spiderlings and as adults, these are completely harmless, though, as so often happens, several of the trashy daily newspapers have, in the past, vilified these bunches of babies with such headlines as ‘Woman’s horror as hundreds of tiny yellow spiders erupt from a nest in her back garden’ and ‘Millions of “exploding” yellow baby spiders invade Britain’.

200509 garden spiderlings (2)

When they’ve grown to adult size, these little cuties will look like those I photographed for my November 2017 blog post Wearing a diadem. You can read more about the Garden spider on the British Arachnological Society’s website.

Wearing a diadem

13 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in nature, spiders

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I know a lot of people freak out about spiders but these are not dangerous in any way and they’re incredibly beautiful. They’re Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus), and are also known as Crowned orb weavers, Garden cross spiders and Diadem spiders because of the intricate crown-like patterns on their backs. And it’s those patterns that I want to focus on here.

171113 Araneus diadematus Garden spider (7)

As you can see below, the designs vary from spider to spider, a little like fingerprints and retina patterns in humans. As you can also see, their colours are quite varied, ranging from an orangey brown right through to very dark brown, verging on black. So, next time you spot one of their large webs strung across the plants in your garden, take a closer look … and be amazed.

Spiders

19 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in insects, nature

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I don’t often share images of spiders because I don’t care for them much. I don’t mind large spiders because you can see them – most of the time you know exactly where they are. It’s the smaller spiders I don’t like, the ones that sneak around, hiding in dark corners or walking upside down on the bathroom ceiling, ready to abseil down when I’m having a shower. However, I know my feelings towards these mostly harmless little creatures are irrational so I’ve been making more of an effort lately to photograph them. And they can be really rather handsome.

Take this creature, for instance. This is the European garden spider, Araneus diadematus, also known as the Crowned orb weaver, the Diadem spider or the Cross spider. Although, as you can see from my photos, its colours are quite variable, the white markings on its abdomen form a distinctive cross pattern. And, although it’s called a garden spider, really much of Europe and North America is its garden. Also, from what I’ve seen of them, these spiders don’t try to hide – they sit quite blatantly in the centres of their webs, with that ‘I don’t know what you are. I don’t know what you want. But I will catch you. And I will suck the juices out of you’ kind of attitude!