The Spider and the What?

Tonight Terry and I sat out on the patio until dark and enjoyed  cocktails and wine. But as we sat on the patio about three feet in front of us a tiny spider began to construct it's web.

The web had one anchor point on the ground just in front of me, another in one Cedar tree to my left and another in the Cedar to my right. Now, how he established these anchor points I do not know. The spider was lucky to be 1/8 of an inch in diamter, but he had long lets and could traverse the ten feet to the tree and ground in less than a minute. He began back and forth building the web that was to be suspended at our eye level, we were sitting in chairs, and the web was half wayfrom the two trees and ground anchor.

Back and forth he went, we became enamoured with him. Soon his pattern began to change and he started going around in that octagonal pattern we see in webs. Around and around he went and we were mesmerized by his effort.

Finally he settled himself in the exact center. It was a little white blob where he had attached all of the central lines for the web. One small insect flew into the web early on and it wasn't long before he snatched it and consumed it on the spot. Then he sat, and sat, and sat. The darker it got we could finally see the pattern of his web in the light of a flashlight. It was amazing. The web was a good 6 to 8 inches across and the strands were maybe one quarter of an inch in separation.

We finally went in to the house and left the spider to his craft. It was impressive and so much effort. I hope he gets his prey and in the morning I'll check, but I'll bet the web will be gone as will the spider, up into the tree until tomorrow night. Providing it was a good hunting area.