Spider webs in the mist

Mist conceals but it also reveals, as with these two webs on neighbouring openings in the railings. In each case the spider is tucked out of sight up in the right hand corner.

The two webs are not identical, but so similar that it seems obvious that the two spiders are of the same kind. It's commonsense.

In other words we assume regularity in nature. Seeing two webs with this degree of similarity we automatically conclude that there is a kind of spider that makes this kind of web, and if we see the same kind tomorrow we shall be able to say that it is the same kind of spider that has made it.

The same commonsense refined becomes science. Nature, our world, our universe, follow rules, beneath which there are other rules, and so on beyond the current reach of human intelligence.

And knowing all that we can still wonder at the web's beauty.

Strange diet

Really I am a fairweather gardener. But despite the cold, these last couple of days have been sunny enough to tempt me out, to check the composting experiment (see 14 July 07) and to start tidying up. What a blessing winter is, cutting down August's intimidating jungle to something manageable!


This was an odd find, just lying on the soil where, I suppose, I'd carelessly left it some hot summer day. It is one of those very thin plastic plant pots that bought plants come in, made (so the maker tells me) of polypropylene; and it appears to have been nibbled. Well nibbled. I assume the nibbler was a small rodent, let us say a mouse. But why should it have nibbled the pot? I know mice will gnaw though plastic very effectively when it is a question of getting out (or even getting in), but I'd never thought they actually ate the stuff. That still still seems unlikely, so the initial question remains.

Goldfinches

This is just one, of course, but last Friday we had nine between the two feeders.

Astonishing.