ROY BAMFORD has been out and about, enjoying the autumn colours
and frosts, spotting thousands of spiderwebs in the moisture-laden air.
IT seems to me that we had more frosts in October than we had in the entirety of the past two winters, but that could be my memory playing tricks.
However, it has definitely been a tonic to have had another Indian summer, some sun (albeit weakened and intermittent) and those autumn colours, fantastic.
In October, in the midst of that dry spell, Cors Caron was at its most atmospheric. The weather was set fair over the whole of west Wales and a widespread, if slight, frost was expected in most rural areas.
There was an icy glaze on the boardwalk and the rank vegetation alongside was saturated but there was no sign of what might be called a typical ground or air frost and with not a breath of wind the day certainly held promise as a weak sun struggled to disperse the mist.
This low angled light combined with the moisture laden air to help pick out the spiders webs in their hundreds and thousands.
It is amazing how many spiders there must be in a few cubic metre of marshland such as can be found at Cors Caron. Usually, you don’t see them, but in some situations, there is no way to avoid them.
Occasionally, I would detour around a particularly big web but in so doing inevitably break and disturb a multitude of others.
A basic lesson in fieldwork, it is impossible to be out there and just be looking at stuff and not have an effect on the environment and at least some of the wildlife.
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