Garden spiders

I found this great big garden spider sitting in our plastic greenhouse. I think she's a female as she was very big. When she saw me, instead of dashing off into the shadows, she made a single thread and very slowly lowered herself down and sank out of sight.

#100DaysOfNature Day 93 - Disappearing very
slowly out of sight

I've never paid very much attention to the them before, but they have the most amazing markings. A group of white spots make a cross on their backs and they have brown and cream stripy legs. These are the spiders that spin the orb webs, made of spirals of silk spun around radial threads. When an insect flies into the web, they rush out and wrap it in sticky silk.

They're very different to House Spiders, which have a much longer, thinner body and spin a sheet web (usually in the corner of a room).