Denzil, in this week’s Nature Photo Challenge, asks us to hunt for spiders and their webs – something that it’s easy to do at this time of year in Britain. Only yesterday, a huge specimen was standing guard over the shoe-rack. But by the time I’d got my camera, he’d vanished. These then, are all archive photos, and unidentified. Helpful suggestions welcomed.


The first one is from India. Perhaps I J Khanewala can help? And the second is also not from England, but from La Rioja in Spain.
The third is from Masham Parish Church, and it’s dead. Is it even a spider?

For the rest, I offer a gallery of webs, mainly taken on misty moisty mornings, or in fog, lending them a mysterious and often ethereal quality.
These were taken in Dumfries and Galloway, in Cairnsmore of Fleet National Nature Reserve. As is the header photo.



The next group come from just down the road, near Sleningford Hall.



And lastly, we return to India, where a tunnel spider has made his complex lure.

Always admiring of the patience and skill spiders exercise in spinning their webs shown of beautifully here. Helps not to be an arachnophobe!
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It does, and luckily I’m not. They are extremely single-minded, aren’t they?
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Indeed they are! Also quite beautiful themselves, some of them,
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Oh, you’ve got some great webs….love the misty morning webs, especially the Cairnsmore one
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They are quite atmospheric aren’t they, those Cairnsmore ones? By gum, it were cold though.
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Brrrrr
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You’ve got stunning photos of the spiders and their webs. Especially the last one.
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Ah, thanks. They’re surprisingly elusive.
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Yes, they are.
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Well done spider phobe. I like the web that looks like a macrame web 🙂 As for what one is what. Orb Weaver, Daddy Long Legs, night spider? but I really have no idea 😂
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I’m not a spider phobe! I love them! I actually find the phobia very hard to understand, though I know it’s very real. Thanks for your ID attempts. Me neither!
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Oh sorry. It must be snakes then 😁
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Nope. I’m ok with those too, unless they want to hug me closely, or bite me savagely. Which won’t happen here in the UK.
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I’m not the biggest fan of spiders but I do admire their artistry. And yours!
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Ah, thanks! Yes, they could definitely get an Arts Council grant, couldn’t they?
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Some gorgeous webs there Margaret!
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I can walk down the garden, through a web, and be caught in the restarted web on the way back. They are mighty fine engineers and artists!
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Absolutely top experts! Can’t beat ’em.
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A great selection and love the web photos, so intricate. You’ve spent time in India? Have I missed that? When and where? I spent the 70 s and 80 s back and forth with studies etc. Have not been back but worked closely with the Sikh community in West London.
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I went in 2007, when I retired, largely by myself. It was partly funded by some of my family as a 60th birthday present. Fabulous experience, and when I began blogging (but not with WP), Largely the south – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
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Sounds wonderful and I love the south of India and lived/ studied in Hyderabad in 1976. Lots of photos on slides I cannot find! What a wonderful present!
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It was. And how wonderful to live there for a while. I couch surfed with a wonderful young American academic in Thanjavur, who was very integrated, speaking the local language and so on, who gave me a much richer picture of life than I’d been able to get as a mere tourist.
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That sounds a wonderful experience. Yes, being in India is one of the highlights of my early life! But not rushing to go back either.
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Nor me. I had an utterly memorable time. But India didn’t get under my skin in a way that would mean I longed to go back.
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Great captures, Margaret. My camera often focuses on the object behind the web. One day I will know enough to revise that.
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I have the same problem the other way round. The camera focusses on the railings, or the chain-link fencing. Not the scene behind, Cameras, eh?
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I know once I master the manual controls I’ll have more influence on the depth of field.
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I find it all quite tricksy too.
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You have some really cool webs and spiders. 😀 😀
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Thanks Cee! It’s the spiders wot dunnit.
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I couldn’t describe myself as a spider sympathiser. Their webs are often in places I don’t want them to be and I have to move them on. Tssk! You shouldn’t even own up to knowing me.
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That must mean you do dusting. I’d thought better of you 😦
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I know! Just once in a while, but I don’t like them on the drainpipe either.
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Don’t dust the drainpipes then 😉
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There’s only one 🤣💙
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No shortage outside my place. I always feel bad destroying their hard work
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Walk past with greater circumspection then!
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I usually feel it before I see it
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Fair point.
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Oh, what a lovely web you weave!
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… when first you practise to deceive …. oh, wait, you didn’t mean that. I hope.
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😂
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The misty morning webs are beautiful, amd I love the tunnel spider’s tunnel!
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That tunnel’s great isn’t it! I was transfixed by them, though I never managed to spot an occupant – or a victim.
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I thought I could see a leg inside?
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Ooh, well observed! I think you’re right.
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Well that makes up for me not noticing the absence of Belize on that map in Indian Church!
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Spiders are fine in pictures, but not in real life! And with global warming the spiders up here seem to be getting so much bigger… 🕷️
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I hadn’t noticed that … yet.
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Great spidyverse you’ve shown us! Great photos.
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Thanks!
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These web images are incredible, Margaret! I haven’t been able to capture like you do.
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Now that really is a compliment, though quite undeserved, coming from a photographer like you!
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🙏🙏
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Wow! What a mind-blowing opening photo! I’d hate to walk through that. Great photos, Margaret!
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Thank you. That photo shows a relatively small bush, so walking through might upset the spiders, but not so bad for you.
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