According to the calendar, early August is the middle of summer, but some changes are showing that the season is moving on. Later sunrises and earlier sunsets are shortening the daylight, and we now have nearly an hour less bright time than we did on the solstice, the beginning of summer. (By the end of this month, diurnal light will be lessened by another hour and a half!) Days can still be hot, but, as we go through August, we'll see much happening that tells of the impending autumn.
It is during this summer month that we gather much of the garden harvest. Tomatoes and sweet corn will become regular parts of our diet, and berry pickers will turn their attention to blackberries and chokecherries as the raspberries wind down. This is also the time when we see the first migrating birds and monarch butterflies. The roadsides are now full of goldenrods and sunflowers with a half-dozen species of asters scattered about too. With a bit of cooling, early mornings carry heavy dew in lawns and fields, mist in wetlands and, frequently, a fog covering all. It is on these wet mornings that I like to get out and look over the scene for spider webs.
Spiders have been with us since the warming days of spring, but several factors make mid to late summer the ideal time to see the abundance of their webs. These eight-legged critters have been growing all summer. The warmer-than-normal temperatures have proven advantageous to the insect world, as its members have proliferated. More insects means more spiders.
Though many spiders do not make webs, it is those snares that we are likely to see in the early-morning dew, mist and fog of August. We never realize how many there are until droplets settle on the threads and allow them to be seen.
Spider webs fall into four categories. The simplest are the cob webs. These look like a haphazard array of threads; they are frequently seen among our window sills. Sheet webs are constructed to look like bowls; they are often in shrubs. Out on the lawns are funnel webs. These are mostly flat with a hole in the center, where the spider sits. For most of us, it is the large circular orb webs that we think of as a spider web. (It is interesting to note that even some people who don't appreciate spiders still find these dew-covered constructions to be photogenic and beautiful.)
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During my morning walks during this month, I find a plethora of all the types. Orb webs and funnel webs may be the most numerous along roadsides and fields, but I am intrigued by the shrub sheet webs as well. (I once found a small spruce that held 10 of these webs.)
Sheet webs also abound in swamps and marshes; I've often counted dozens in the small leatherleaf plants that grow in these places. Webs are usually bowl-shaped, though sometimes this bowl may be inverted, looking more like a dome. The tiny spiders that construct them are easily overlooked. The web maker sits under the bowl and waits. Insects getting caught here hit the numerous threads and fall to where the patient predator grabs the struggling prey.
While orb webs are often knocked down and rebuilt each day, sheet webs will last for many days or weeks before being abandoned.
We are just at the beginning of the best web-watching time of the year. For the next month and a half they will be out there in the dew, mist and fog nearly every day.
Retired teacher Larry Weber can be reached c/o budgeteer@duluthbudgeteer.com .
