Webwatch - but not as you may first think it to be

Ever since I can remember I have always had a curious and enquiring mind and real interest in all the sciences. As a child this often got me in trouble for asking too many questions at the tea table or creating strange and lingering smells with my concoctions and lotions. Think, good old stink bombs and you may understand. One specific area of biology I love is spider web catching and webwatch.

Spider web catching of course happens best in the early morning hours, as the neighbour’s rooster is crowing and the birds have begun their morning choir practice. On these dewy and misty mornings in our pyjamas and with bare feet, for that cool smooth massage for our toes on the grass, out to the garden we would go with our brown paper bags or remnants of black tar roofing paper and some talcum powder. So many webs everywhere when you start to look.

Catching is a process of gently sliding the paper up behind a web, without touching it, then gently pressing it against the web and lifting the paper up in a slow scooping motion. At first it may look like you have nothing and then with a gentle talc snow sprinkled on top and a gentle blow to remove the excess ,you have appear before your eyes a beautiful and unique web.

We tried this sprinkling with some golden and silver icing powder used for cake decorating or powder paints of our favourite colours, a sealing with hairspray creates beautiful art pieces as well.

Did you know that the design, shape and completeness or incompleteness of a spider’s web can tell you a lot about the health of the air and the environment around them. Some sprays and airborne chemicals or spores can change the strength of a spider’s silk milk? And often webs are not complete or a bit like my knitting when I was learning, had dropped stitches and holes that could be easily seen.

So in your garden at your OSCAR programme or at home, choose a wee corner of the garden and put webwatching in to action, if your plants seem less healthy or you just want to keep your eye out for your environment and develop a lifelong skill that will make you a great gardener, then webwatching is for you and your children.

Julie