For those of you who read my blog regularly you’ll know that I posted a ‘guest’ article on wildaboutdevon.co.uk about the Cave Spiders I had spotted at Killerton last year, and my follow-up trip back in February.

Well I had a chance to pop back for another visit the other weekend. I took a torch and camera, and my patient wife kindly accommodated our extended stay in and around the Ice-House.

As you no doubt guessed from the title of this post, I wasn’t disappointed. There were indeed 8 adult female cave spiders on their hair-fine webs.
I find these spiders truly wonderful and beautiful. They have lovely patterning under the fine hairs on their back and they are subtlely varied. I’ve popped a whole album of photos on the Gallery page, so you can have a good look and see if you agree…
I also hope to pop a short video up soon to show you just where they were (they might move around a bit, but it should help you get an idea where to look), but I’d suggest you take a torch if you do visit, as the lights and torch provided by the National Trust often aren’t working.

I am planning to write a short Fact File for this spider to post up soon. If that goes down well I might have a go at compliling a bunch of them into an eBook. Just a thought

Hooray! The first batch of photographs are up on the website. Click the ‘Gallery’ link in the bar above to see them.

Currently you can click on any image to go to a bigger version, which will open in a new window (or tab, depending on your browser). In time I will develop a new page for each large image, so this doesn’t happen.

I hope you like the pictures – I took them all myself using a Canon Ixus 60 digital camera on macro mode (and a lot of patience!).

Enjoy, Nature Gazers.

(PS I promise to do another write-up or review soon – I’ve just been quite busy working on the website these last couple of weeks.)