This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/05/country-diary-highlands-midges-spiders-ecosystem
The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| Assault by midges is the price you pay for this shimmering landscape | Assault by midges is the price you pay for this shimmering landscape |
| (about 14 hours later) | |
| Abriachan, Highlands In places, the canopy of thistle, ling, scabious and soft rush was sunk in a near-weightless empire of silk | |
| Mark Cocker | |
| Tue 5 Sep 2017 05.30 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 17.32 GMT | |
| Share on Facebook | |
| Share on Twitter | |
| Share via Email | |
| View more sharing options | |
| Share on LinkedIn | |
| Share on Pinterest | |
| Share on Google+ | |
| Share on WhatsApp | |
| Share on Messenger | |
| Close | |
| Aside from the slurry of S-sounds tipped out by a roadside burn, there was nothing at this spot but the early morning hush of the moor. Yet the silence seemed only to emphasise all the internal noise generated in me by an assault from midges. They started as a loose-meshed veil about my hands and face but soon thickened into a maddening private halo. | Aside from the slurry of S-sounds tipped out by a roadside burn, there was nothing at this spot but the early morning hush of the moor. Yet the silence seemed only to emphasise all the internal noise generated in me by an assault from midges. They started as a loose-meshed veil about my hands and face but soon thickened into a maddening private halo. |
| They particularly wanted my wrists – I have 23 bites there as I type – and I could invert my binoculars to watch the 2mm beasts, with their pin-thin heads and barred bodies, at their work. How can something so easily turned to a smudge on a notebook page puncture human skin? | They particularly wanted my wrists – I have 23 bites there as I type – and I could invert my binoculars to watch the 2mm beasts, with their pin-thin heads and barred bodies, at their work. How can something so easily turned to a smudge on a notebook page puncture human skin? |
| Yet, in many ways, it was this incessant swarm that said most about the arresting effect of the spiders’ webs that had made me jam on the brakes. Despite my midge cloud, I had pushed the bike over the verge, reaching for binoculars and camera. Looking out over about a hectare of wet ground, I tried to calculate their numbers and, in one four-metre square, I counted about 90 webs. Yet other parts were almost twice as densely covered and, in places, the forest canopy of thistle, ling, scabious and soft rush was sunk in a near-weightless empire of silk. | Yet, in many ways, it was this incessant swarm that said most about the arresting effect of the spiders’ webs that had made me jam on the brakes. Despite my midge cloud, I had pushed the bike over the verge, reaching for binoculars and camera. Looking out over about a hectare of wet ground, I tried to calculate their numbers and, in one four-metre square, I counted about 90 webs. Yet other parts were almost twice as densely covered and, in places, the forest canopy of thistle, ling, scabious and soft rush was sunk in a near-weightless empire of silk. |
| These webs were mainly the work of hammock-weavers, which don’t produce the symmetrical spheres of orb-weavers. Tight-meshed layers of silk had been suspended midair and from that the spiders had spun irregular connective shrouds that bound the web to multiple anchors in the bog vegetation. | These webs were mainly the work of hammock-weavers, which don’t produce the symmetrical spheres of orb-weavers. Tight-meshed layers of silk had been suspended midair and from that the spiders had spun irregular connective shrouds that bound the web to multiple anchors in the bog vegetation. |
| “Hammock” nicely describes many of the concave structures – except that their owners hang upside down beneath their “couch” – but there were also Christmas-tree-shaped tents draped around spikes of rush. I wondered if this entire scintillation could be the work of a single genetic community: one spider clan, perhaps, by a burn. | “Hammock” nicely describes many of the concave structures – except that their owners hang upside down beneath their “couch” – but there were also Christmas-tree-shaped tents draped around spikes of rush. I wondered if this entire scintillation could be the work of a single genetic community: one spider clan, perhaps, by a burn. |
| I also wondered what they awaited to enmesh in all this thread work. And slowly it dawned on me that this whole shimmering landscape – the spiders, the silk, even the swallows and wagtails undulating overhead, since they must surely eat them too – was here, unlike me, precisely because the midges were present in such abundance. | I also wondered what they awaited to enmesh in all this thread work. And slowly it dawned on me that this whole shimmering landscape – the spiders, the silk, even the swallows and wagtails undulating overhead, since they must surely eat them too – was here, unlike me, precisely because the midges were present in such abundance. |
| Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary | Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary |
| Insects | |
| Country diary | |
| Spiders | |
| Wildlife | |
| Summer | |
| Scotland | |
| features | |
| Share on Facebook | |
| Share on Twitter | |
| Share via Email | |
| Share on LinkedIn | |
| Share on Pinterest | |
| Share on Google+ | |
| Share on WhatsApp | |
| Share on Messenger | |
| Reuse this content |