James Chubb

Feeding the Passion

As much as I love to hear from people who enjoy reading my weekly waffle, it’s even better to receive news from people about wildlife they have come across. When the wildlife in question is a personal favourite I really do find it difficult to not jump out of my seat in excitement like a younger Bruno Tonioli. Imagine my joy when I received the following email from a reader, which neatly encapsulates all three scenarios! The square brackets are an approximation of my reaction when reading the email.

Hello James [Hi]

Read and enjoy your column every week  in the Exmouth Journal [excellent stuff] and following on from your comments about trapping flies only to release them into a waiting spiders web, my children have enjoyed a similar macabre experience [jolly good] with a wasp spider  [What!!] currently residing in our garden [In your GARDEN?!].

We came across her late last month and to begin with were horrified as to what she was, my 7 year old son George thought that she was a garden spider who had eaten a wasp!! I[You’ve known about it for a month!]

So we took a couple of pics of her and looked on the internet for any information where we found out her name but not a lot else about her. She had made a fantastic web fairly low down near the ground [yep, it’s a wasp spider] and was feasting on grasshoppers that were landing in her web, something that my 10 year and 7 yr old  loved to help her with [oh, the lucky things!] by catching grasshoppers in their hands and releasing them by the web with the hope of them jumping onto it and then would sit mesmerised watching her skillfully wrapping them in silk. My daughter had been studying mummification at school and this was the next best thing for her!! [First best thing for me] We noticed that under the web were all the discarded old grasshoppers and there were loads of harvestmen picking over any remnants.[Wow!]

I don't think my photos do her justice as she is the most striking spider I have ever seen and I would never of expected to see one in our garden.[Wow!]

We couldn't find out what the male looks like so if you have photos or links to a site to see one we would appreciate it.[I’m on it!]

Many thanks

Mrs Andrea Smale

I obviously sprang into action and sent a photo of the requested male wasp spider to Andrea immediately. So as not be accused of bias, I should point out that I would have provided the exact level of service had she begun her message “Although I can’t abide your dreadful articles...’

But, when it comes to wasp spiders I find myself in a state of mesmeric enthusiasm.

Wasp spiders are thought to have been introduced to England in the 1920s, but may have been here longer. Natives of southern Europe, their natural continental range extends as far as Scandanavia, and their UK distribution has a heavy southern bias. They build a very large orb web, low down in the grass, with a characteristic zig-zag silk pattern called a stablimentum. The precise function of the stablimentum is not known, however theories range from deterring birds from flying through the web to, as the name suggests, a stabilising function in this large silk structure.

The ground level web is specifically constructed to catch grasshoppers, which this large spider is more than capable of overpowering. Andrea’s email graphically illustrates how effective this technique can be, with the spider maintaining her web in a single location rather than moving about the garden.

I, of course, thoroughly endorse the children’s game of feeding their wild pet, and am particularly heartened that the family were unsure of the spider to begin with, but were won over by the beauty and charisma of this stunning invertebrate. Perhaps the wasp spider will be the first step into a lifetime interest in spiders for Andrea and her children, perhaps it will merely become a vague summer memory, either way I am deeply envious of them having this superb minibeast in their garden – what a wonderful find!

Keep sending me your wildlife finds and I will keep being totally wowed by how lucky you are to live in such a wild town.