Autumn time in Cornwall heralds an influx of spiders into the garden who are all competing for the tastiest of snacks. A Michelin star dinner with every bite welcomes the sturdiest of our eight-legged friends, where patience and stamina against the autumn winds chooses the victor. Our back garden has become a self-service supermarket with the overgrowth fully stocked with various insects oblivious to the eight-legged hungry shoppers.
For a few days I kept checking the garden looking for any signs of fine dining and it seemed that nature was against me. My macro lens cried in frustration and my camera was impatient and grumpy. Late afternoon had come around and whilst popping my head outside I was rewarded with a freshly captured wasp in a spider’s web. Time was now against me, and I knew that in order to get the shot I would not have much time to do so.
I sprinted back into the house like a madman and franticly searched for my camera. Two days previously the office had been moved to another room and in my moment of haste I could not remember where my camera was. When I finally found my camera, my telephoto had to be swapped out with my macro and then another desperate sprint back to the back garden.
Leaning against the garden wall to stabilise my shot from the Cornish winds that were already picking up, the spider’s web ebbed and flowed whilst the wasp danced a merry tune of death. The spider who had waited patiently for days could taste the victory and with a knife and fork in hand proceeded to sit down at the dinner table.
The tiniest of threads was all it took to snare the unfortunate wasp and as the Cornish winds whipped the back garden into a frenzy the single strand of web became no more. A freak act of nature led to the salvation of the wasp and the spider was already clearing the dining table ready for the next meal. The spider had no time for contemplation or sorrow knowing that the supermarket shelves were fully stocked with Michelin star bites just waiting to be snared.
The Ravenous Spider gallery can be found here.