Light Webs
January 10, 2004
Provided and copyright by: Michiel de Boer
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster; Michiel de Boer
The above photo of this dew-covered lawn was taken on November 5, 2003 in the Netherlands. It may look like ice, but actually the grass was coated with cobwebs. The covering was not as dense as what one usually sees with a spider web, but was rich enough to produce this glitter effect -- essentially hundreds of tiny reflections of the Sun. These webs weren't easily detectable until the early morning Sun bounced off the horizontally aligned "threads." Spiders use their own webs to be launched by the wind, perhaps to search out new territory. If the silk-like material comes in contact with the grass, it gets stuck, and the spider has to try again. This seems to be a rather common phenomena during autumn.
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