02 Feb, 2009

Early morning light picks out hundreds of dew-laden webs in the grass.

It was a relatively quiet night in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. We expected the lions to have moved on after the buffalo, past our camp, but even though we were out before sunrise, there was no sign of the lions.

We made our way east along a route that would lead us across many grass- and reed-covered floodplains. It was on one of these that I experienced one of the most awe-inspiring sunrises of my life.

Thanks to the rain that had fallen the previous afternoon, the air temperature was fairly cool and once the sun had started to warm the air higher up it created beautiful mist banks which are usually seen during the cooler winter months. It was as though we were sitting at the coast rather than in the middle of a land-locked delta. The mist softened the light, which gave everything a golden glow and a sparkle.

The sparkles emanated from dew droplets which brought into focus hundreds and hundreds of spider webs. These webs were everywhere, yet a few minutes earlier we could barely see 20.

We had a closer look at the webs and the spiders dwelling there. They appeared to be grass orb-web spiders, but we could not identify the exact species.

These arachnids were probably busy through the night creating their efficient little webs designed to trap prey. Once a creature becomes trapped in the web, the spider cocoons it in silk and consumes its prey at leisure. It is incredible to see the precision and speed with which the spiders create their intricate little webs.

As the sun rose higher, the light brightened and dew evaporated, transforming the entire scene. The spider webs were no longer visible, the mist had cleared and it was as if the enchantment of what we had witnessed had never been there.

– by Jason Loughran, Earth-Touch crew © Earth-Touch

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