I have been keeping an eye on the courgette patch for the last couple of days, hoping to see the spider with her babies.  Well,  the babies have now hatched, but it appears that I made a wrong identification.

This morning, the spider was standing guard over a web full of spiderlings, meaning that this is in fact a Nursery Web Spider, and not a Wolf Spider as previously thought.

Apparently the Nursery Web spider carries the egg sac in her jaws, meaning that she cannot feed until the babies have hatched, now there’s a devoted mother for you.

I have taken a couple of shots showing the spider standing guard over the web, and I will post these shortly.

Yesterday, my Physiotherapist told me that I need to get out and do more walking to strengthen my back.  I  was even given the green light to get on my bike and go for a ride as long as I kept it short and stayed away from the hills.

Today, I went out for a couple of walks, once in the morning, and once this afternoon, each lasting about 1.5 hours or so.

This afternoon, I went for a wander along the Holy Brook, and was amazed by the number of Banded Demoiselles and Mayflies that were about, though unfortunately I’d made the mistake of wearing a red T-Shirt which meant that I couldn’t get close to anything :o(

I walked as far as the breach in the bank of the Holy Brook, which still hasn’t been repaired, before I came back and headed out across the footpath towards the old railway embankment.

Whilst walking across here, I saw no fewer then 5 Little Egrets, which was a huge surprise.  I knew that they’d got more common, but I never expected to see 5 on my doorstep.

There were also a couple of Kestrels about, and a rather high flying Red Kite, the sightings of which seem to be getting much more frequent over the centre of Reading.