Pirate Spider egg sac
There’s a small ball of fluff on the bottom of my pressure washer. I don’t know what memory I have of seeing …
The Wasp Spider
Walking around Bovey Heath we spot a Wasp Spider. It’s a fantastic specimen. Just look at it: I manage to get between …
Diadem Spider
I’m at Bovey Heathfield. It’s not quite Dartmoor and the heath is a lowland heath. There are plenty of spiders blocking the …
Spiderbombing
I don’t know how long photobombing has been ‘a thing’. Spoiling someone’s photograph by appearing in it unexpectedly must have appeared very …
A wolf at the door
We arrive home late to our rented room in Tuscania in Italy. As we get the key out we notice a huge …
An Orchard Orb-Weaver
Today is hot and oppressive in Virginia. There’s the constant sound of insects, a noisy hum of the motorway and clinging grey …
Nursery Web Spider
I’d love to be wearing shorts in this heat but the likelihood of ticks and the healthy patches of stinging nettles mean …
Garden Spider – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
The Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus, is a species I first wrote about in my nature notebooks in 1976. Here’s one at the …
Wasp Spider on the plane and on the plain
On the high mountain plain above Calascio in Italy we stop for a picnic and I see a black, white and yellow …
Spider in the bath
It’s time for a bath and that means yet another spider to wash down the plug hole.