As I walked along the riverbank in Brandon Fen this morning, I kept walking through spiders webs. This is definitely a sign of the times, as this is a great time of year to look for our (mostly) eight-legged friends. I am going to use this opportunity to introduce you to some of the species that you might find on a walk around the reserve.
I will start off with one that you may have heard of, the garden spider. Despite its name, it can be found in a variety of different habitats and it can be found here at Lakenheath Fen, if you know where to look. It can be slightly tricky to identify, as it comes in a variety of colours. Here are a two of the colour variations:
Image credits: Tim James
As you can see, both variants have a cross on their abdomens. This gives them the alternative name of: "cross spider".
Garden spiders mainly feed on flying insects that they catch in their orb-shaped webs. The females are usually found upside down in their webs, which are found around a metre from the ground.
The next species is the four-spot orb weaver. This species holds the record as being the heaviest spider found in Britain. Hopefully, the picture below will help to explain why:
Image credit: Tim James
It certainly has a very large abdomen! This is another species that can vary in colour. This species' hunting tactic is to build its web close to the ground so that it can catch unfortunate crickets and grasshoppers that jump into its web.
The third and final species is the attractively marked marbled orb weaver, which looks like this:
This is a bit of a local specialty and it is always great to see this species for the first time each year. The best month of year to see them is September and as you can see from the pictures above, they can be very photogenic. Their scientific name is the rather elaborate Araneus marmoreus var. pyramidatus. The "marmoreus" part literally means "marble-like", hence its British name.
The best place to see them on the reserve is around the poplar woods. They build their orb-shaped webs on plants like cow parsley. They can usually be seen until the end of September so if you would like to come and see one, you have plenty of time!
I am sure that some of you will love this blog post and some of you will hate it. If you love it, I hope you have enjoyed this small insight into which of our "eight-legged" friends call the reserve home. We hope to see you soon!