Known variously as the cross or the garden cross spider, this large-bodied spider is familiar to most of us as the spider that hangs around in large spiral orb webs stretched across garden paths or draped across shrubs around this time of year, the delicate strands of silk often bejewelled with dew or frost.  This is one of the UKs largest spiders, coming up close behind the giant fen spider (a very localised and specialised prince of a spider that lives in the Norfolk Fens), and the much maligned Giant House Spider.

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What marks these girls out is their large, bulbous abdomen which is particularly noticeable in late summer when she is heavy with eggs. Spiders are measured from nose to tail, so to speak, and not by the span of their legs (otherwise the airy-fairy daddy long legs with its whisper of a body, would be counted as one of the largest in the UK).  The female Garden Spider has a body length of 15 to 20 mm, while the male measures in at around 9mm to 13 mm  - plus legs. The female is also much sturdier than the male, making an altogether more impressive and noticeable character.

 

This species earns its name because of the distinctive pale cross shaped markings on its abdomen. The abdomen itself can range from a pale yellow through reddish brown to almost black, but the female in particular is always recognisable by the shape of her body.  She is always much larger and fatter than the male and because they are a different shape they can easily be mistaken for two different species. Their legs are banded dark and pale and are sturdy and sparsely hairy.

 

This impressive spider spins its beautiful webs from two different types of silk, the non-sticky spokes that radiate out from the middle of the web, and the sticky capture threads that link the spokes. The female spider will usually spin a new web each evening, first consuming the old one (which she can do in a matter of minutes) before resting for an hour or so to reabsorb the nutrient-rich silk and then spinning a new web ready for the new day. If you find you have an hour to spare one autumn evening, pull up a chair and watch her as she spins her masterpiece. It is an impressive sight.

 

These webs are used for catching prey species of larger flying insects such as bees, flies and butterflies. Unlike the untidy and macabre webs of other spiders, the giant orb webs of the garden spider are the embodiment of good housekeeping as, due to her habit of spinning a new each day, you rarely find an orb web strewn with the remains of past meals.

On detecting the presence of some unfortunate insect in her web the female dashes out, injects the insect with venom and binds it quickly and efficiently in a silken wrap then injects it with digestive chemicals and process.  When the chemicals have done their work she will return to consume her meal.

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Males also spin webs, but they are much smaller and not nearly as conspicuous as those of the female. Male garden spiders, as is the bad luck of their kind, must watch their step if they are to survive an amorous encounter with a female. The male twangs a thread of the web to announce his presence, then approaches the female cautiously, grasping her with his palps (a set of leg-like appendages in front of the legs) and inserting a sperm sack into the female. Contrary to popular belief most encounters do end happily, with the male making a hasty retreat after mating  to go off and find another willing mate, and the female retreating for a couple of days and then finding a suitably quiet spot in which to lay her clutch of between 300 to 900 eggs. She lays them, hidden from predators in a silken cocoon, and guards them for several days before, having fulfilled her task, she dies.

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The spiderlings, having been kept safe and warm within this egg sac through winter, hatch from their eggs in late spring and they stay together in a loose web hidden among leaves or branches until after their first moult. Equipped to face the world,  they emerge, climbing free of the bushes on which they spent the winter and are disbursed by the wind in a method called ballooning that can take them hundreds of miles from their birthplace.  These tiny spiderlings will feed and grow over their first summer and will overwinter under cover and reaching maturity and mating in their second year.

 

• The webs of the Garden Spider are usually only in evidence towards the end of summer and into autumn as this is the time when the female reaches her mature size and is able to build her largest webs.

• Although you may not know it, you have probably seen hundreds of baby garden spiders as they are the species that are commonly seen in spring clustered together in tight balls, only to scatter, and then to cluster together again when they believe the coast is clear. They have the bulbous body of the adults, though in miniature, but are distinctively marked in bright yellow and black.