Your picture of the day...

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Taken today while out shooting spotted this little guy
 
My pictures of the day. Wasp spider, from its only known site in Wales, which happens to be the Woodland Trust nature reserve that I'm the warden of. Discovered last year, and this is the first one for 2013.

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Got out of bed this morning at half past 5 for a nice little solo trip. Spotted lots of barking roe deer but also this one:



Nice sunrise too:



And I ate a raw burdock root which was surprisingly tasty.
 
I like the Bride of Frankenstein hair lightning bolt in its web. Is that a repair or how they do them?

It is called a stabilimentum, and no-one really knows what purpose it serves. Some think it strengthens the web (wasp spiders prey on grasshoppers, which are pretty powerful and can make a mess of a web when they struggle), some think it stops birds flying into the web (doesn't apply to wasp spiders because they make their web so low down), some think it makes it harder for predators to spot the spider sitting in the web (but wasp spiders are brightly coloured). The fact is: nobody really knows.

To the other question asked, yes they are orb spiders.
 

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