I’m really pleased that the big spiders spinning webs across the path and in the grass turned out to be a spider I hadn’t photographed before. Unmistakeably the garden cross spider, it’s a big old orb spider with a cross emblazoned on its back in white dots, set within a brown Christmas tree shape. It hasn’t been often that species have been this easy to identify. Hurrah!
Garden cross spiders are a type of orb spider and are known for their large webs often strung across pathways, as I have found. If it is disturbed it will try and shake the web or drop down on a silken thread and hide till danger has passed and it can return to its web.
These are big-bodied spiders, especially the females. It looks quite fierce but is not known to bite humans.
In spite of the heatwave we are currently experiencing, I associate these large spiders webs draped everywhere with autumn and ‘Back to School’ because they are usually dripping prettily with dew drops against a misty backdrop. I wondered if that was just me, but the Natural History Museum say that although spiders webs can be found all year round, it is in the autumn that we are most likely to notice them, when they are revealed by dew and mist droplets. Also the spiders are fully-grown and looking for a mate, so they are more visible too.
Birds were gathering on the telegraph wires yesterday evening and we are wondering whether the housemartins will be leaving us, soon. The swifts went weeks ago.
