Spiders are cool

Spiders are cool. Like, really really cool. There's this massive stigma that they're absolutely terrifying, but, I've never really understood why. There's nothing more gross about a spider than there is a grasshopper, or a beetle, or even a butterfly- just because they're a different shape and like to come and chill in the corners of your bedroom in the winter, apparently that makes them incredibly scary.

The most impressive thing I think about spiders, are their webs. When I got lost on Godlingston Heath with the boyfriend a couple of weeks ago (no doubt I'll write about that eventually, there's lots to tell), we blundered across so many spiders, it was like something out of Aragog's lair, or Shelob's minions or something equally fantasy-bookish. We were a bit busy trying to work out which way through the forest of gorse bushes towards Agglestone Rock was least prickly, so we neglected to take pictures of the (hundreds) of spiders we came across (and their webs), but we found something even better once we got to Agglestone.

 Boyfriend for scale

This absolute beast of a web completely covered just one gorse bush next to Agglestone- strangely, every other gorse bush around was normal, with only a few webs here and there. It was this one specific bush, that didn't seem different or special from the rest, that was utterly covered. To the touch, it wasn't sticky, just very firm, with layers and layers of web.
Thankfully touching it didn't reward something like this (which I do admit, would have been a little bit frightening). It was amazing what such tiny creatures had managed to construct though, covering the whole bush so well!

I've seen webs cover gorse before, but not to quite the same amazing extent, and there's always been a few other webs around on nearby bushes, so this was quite a surprise! Especially when, poking the gorse itself, the webs were actually fairly good protection from the spines- something we had found out hurt all too well only half an hour before, when trying to get to Agglestone in the first place.
Now, with a little bit of googling and some good luck, I've found that these webs weren't actually woven by spiders, but something called gorse spider mite. Technically not spiders, they live in colonies and spin webs that act as shelters. This was a really massive colony! It's a biological pest control method that's used in a few countries where gorse is a weed, as they can cause massive damage to the host plants. This one looked fairly happy though, despite being absolutely swamped. Hopefully both will survive the winter season!