European Garden Spider

Spotted a very large orb web in the garden strung between two uprights which are 68 inches (1730mm) apart. It is amazing the effort a spider has to go to in bridging the gap with the first couple of connections before it can start building the web. This usually has to be done every day / night as the web soon becomes damaged by clumsy humans walking through it!

The question that springs to my mind is - when the spider first uses those two uprights and having made its first anchor point on one upright, has it already chosen the second upright or does it come across it accidentally?

Getting the web and spider in focus was problematic as, with such a large span, the slightest breeze was making the whole thing move quite a distance.

This wider view was given a pseudo HDR treatment to make the web strands stand out better.




The owner - a European Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus)
Probably the most common spider in Europe





This individual was about an inch (24mm) across the outstretched legs.