Artful arachnids

I wandered down to a far corner of the garden this afternoon, where the kitties' graves are under the lemon tree, and by chance a ray of sunlight peeped through the branches and revealed the most incredible spider's web stretching between the bushes. The two owners of the web, a pair of golden orb spiders, were busy repairing the web, which seems to be very effective. Plenty of food is wrapped up for later consumption; the vain struggling of the little bugs merely caused a few snaps of the web strands - there was no escape. I watched in fascination as the spiders drew the sticky thread from whichever orifice it is that emits it, and worked away at filling the gaps that had appeared.

The golden orb spider doesn't  spin the beautiful flat, symmetrical web which we all associate with spiders, but rather makes a haphazard crisscrossing over a wide and deep area, guaranteeing that something must meet a sticky end. Rather like the laser beams that are used for alarm systems - or at least the ones we see in the movies. (Oops! I stand corrected! On a further inspection later on, I realised that there are in fact two flat symmetrical webs in the middle of the laser web! Even more skill than I gave them credit for!)

I haven't seen these before in my garden, and it seems that there is a proliferation of them at the moment, with a huge web with about 50 or so arachnid inhabitants attracting attention on a wall down near the beach. I hope no one thinks to harm these creatures, who are only going about their business, and don't seek to destroy such a monumental effort to catch a few bugs, which incidentally keeps them away from us. There is a purpose for the existence of every living thing.