The spider season

 There are some fascinating spiders around at this time of the year. This little beauty is a zebra spider, that lives in my greenhouse. It doesn't make a web, it leaps on its prey. The forward-facing pair of its eight eyes are especially large, giving it binocular forward vision and the ability to judge distance accurately.

The garden spider below has spun its web in my greenhouse, across the doorway: I have to duck under it to get in and out. I watched as it caught this wasp and wrapped it in a silken shroud in less that 20 seconds. In the second picture you can see the prey's jaws protruding through the silk, as it tried to bite its way out - unsuccessfully.

This house spider, below, had fallen into our bath - probably entering the bathroom through an open window after climbing up the outside wall. It most likely fell in when it tried to drink from the dripping tap. It's now re-housed in the greenhouse.

House spiders look fearsome but they are easy prey for cellar spiders that trap them in their silken threads, using their long legs to drape the thread around their prey, then paralysing it with venom. They guard their captured prey, usually taking a couple of days to eat them, leaving only a few pieces of its exoskeleton. 

Both cellar spiders and crane flies are commonly known as daddy-long-legs but when the two meet (below) the outcome is never in doubt. Most crane flies that find their way into our house end up in a cellar spider's web.

Crafty Crab Spiders

Some spiders spin webs, others chase down their prey, a few leap on victims - but crab spiders have an altogether more laid-back approach to hunting. They just sit on a flower with their front legs akimbo like a crab, keep perfectly still, wait for a visiting insect to land within reach - then grab it. Using the pollen and nectar supply of the flower as their lure, they are remarkably effective hunters. 

I think all of these, except the last one, are Xysticus species and all females - probably two different colour morphs of the same species, X. cristatus. Notice those forward-pointing bristles on the outspread legs which help to grip the struggling prey when those legs close around it.

The fly visiting this dandelion is living very dangerously.

The host flower here is viper's bugloss Echium vulgare, a plant that produces a lot of nectar and so is a magnet for potential prey.

All the above are scanned transparencies taken in our garden a decade ago, but the final one was taken in France 30 years ago and shows Misumena vatia, which can change colour to match its floral background. This female tones very nicely with the hemp agrimony inflorescence that she's sitting on - notice the perfect colour match of the pink patches on the flanks of her abdomen and the flower buds.