Arachnaphobia...

The month starts cold and snowy. Not too much snow for us on the coast but a full covering only a couple of miles inland. It might shuffle some birds down to our green fields.

In winter most of my bloggage is bird orientated but last year I was given a copy of the field guide 'Britain's Spiders' so after joining Spiders UK on Facebook in 2019 I am going to try and get a few arachnid records submitted. Since 2002 - 2015 there were only 36 spider records submitted for the whole of Northumberland - VC's 67 and 68. Very common species such as Garden Orb Weaver and House Spider are missing from many 10 km squares, so it gives me an excuse to hunt dusty house corners on grim winter days to see what is lurking.

My main discovery so far is that we need a new hoover !

Any way last night our porch held three, wait for it, Missing-sector Orb Weavers Zygiella x-notata  and last week I found a Mouse Spider Scotopaeus blackwalli  and a False Widow Steatoda bipunctata.

I wasn't bitten and my life was not endangered. There was no need to knock up a blue and red spandex outfit to start fighting crime, no, just a few tiny spidery things waiting out the cold...

Mouse Spider

Rabbit-hutch Spider

Missing-sector Orb Weaver. 

Spidering

A week ago I took this spider from our kitchen ceiling. It had been there since before Christmas with its small web in the corner. I thought it might need better 'habitat' and placed it in the shed.

Anyway, after a quick scan on the internet, it is, I think, a species called Zygiella x-notata or the Missing sector Orb Web Spider.

The gobful of a name intrigued me so another five minutes on't'internet gave away the secret of its unusual name. It is an orb web builder like the garden spiders we all know, but this species is one of a group that leaves a segment out of the 'orb web'. I have seen this before but thought the web had just been damaged.You live and learn....

See the missing sectors....