garden spiders – Nature Along the El Camino Real

Fog plus cobwebs equals magic

May 26, 2026 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall2 Comments

By Linda Burgess

On Sunday morning, I went for a walk at sunrise. The fog made the morning quite beautiful over my property.

As I walked I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the garden spiders’ webs looked with frost on them.

I got curious and looked up how the dew and spiderwebs interact. The droplets condense on the webs, and when the sun comes out, the droplets can create prism effects.

The webs are present all the time, but usually the spider silk is so thin that we humans can’t see it. Thanks to Nature for providing these ephemeral beauties!

Farewell to the Garden Spiders

October 19, 2022October 17, 2022 Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall2 Comments

by Eric Neubauer

Fall is a sad time of year for some. I had garden spiders arrayed around my house again this year. One picked a low spot between the porch and skirting. It was a good spot at first and she grew quickly. There were lots of suitors while she was the only show in town, including some from the other species.

About that time, she wasn’t catching anything and looked like she might be starving to death, so I started throwing differential grasshoppers into her web. After a while she was doing OK on her own, so I stopped. In all she produced six egg sacs. No other spider came close and most never produced a single sac. After the last sac, she caught no more grasshoppers and died about a week after the photo was taken.