Tag Archives: web

Hard at work, in the wrong place

Wednesday 10th December 2025, 9.55am (day 5,221)

Spider at work, 10/12/25

This spider was not a big one, but its web was expansive enough, and as you can see, it’s still hard at work with the building. What marvellous creatures these are: there are many species which build some kind of dwelling, of course, but can’t manage it purely with goo extruded out from their bodies.

However, you can see that it’s working on the outside of a rather grubby window (the kitchen one, as it happens). By the evening, evidence (like, a bill on the doormat) then suggested our window cleaner had been round on one of his seasonal visits and all this was nowhere to be seen. I bet the spider was substantially pissed off, I know I would have been.

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Campus spider

Tuesday 7th October 2025, 9.10am (day 5,157)

Campus spider, 7/10/25

In actuality I will estimate this creature’s body to have been about the size of my thumbnail, so you see it here at around three times life size. Impressive web work, particularly as this resides not in some hidden cranny but beside the A34 in Manchester, on the side of the annex to the Engineering Building (sorry, the Dame Nancy Rothwell Building [B]). Spiders have been around for more than 200 million years, and, I am sure, are among the many species which will outlive us, however things pan out in a future time that I will not see.

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Web across the path

Thursday 2nd May 2024, 10.00am (day 4,634)

Cobweb, 2/5/24

There is nothing St Helena-specific about this shot, but on the other hand, this isn’t the kind of thing I would expect to see stretched across my path on my walk to work in Manchester. But here it was this morning, as I headed for my appointment at the local secondary school. Big bugger too: I was kinda glad the maker wasn’t at home; what you see in the centre is just the remains of its last meal, by the looks of things.

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The larder at bridge no. 17

Monday 21st August 2023, 11.10am (day 4,379)

Spider larder, 21/8/23

A healthily-stocked larder, at least, if you are a spider. It’s like our plums — you keep them for later. Bridge no. 17 is the one at Black Pit Lock on the Rochdale Canal, in Hebden Bridge town centre.

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House guest and its private larder

Tuesday 20th September 2022, 1.20pm (day 4,044)

Spider and larder, 20/9/22

I haven’t been getting about much over the last couple of days. Point the camera up at roughly a 45º angle from where I took yesterday’s shot, and you will catch our tenant spider in your viewfinder. I noticed today that she’s built up quite a larder for herself. Fine by me: at least all these critters aren’t eating the houseplants.

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