@David Pilling
I can't do pictures for this year. The colder temperatures earlier this month killed off the spiders - at least the grass spiders, still plenty of normal spider webs around.
If you want to see funnel weaver or grass spider webs, there are plenty of photos online. Just make sure you enter the name as funnel weaver spider, not funnel-web spider. The funnel-web spider is an Aussie denizen, not US. If you see pictures of a large black spider with a sac-like rear end, that's the funnel-web. Funnel weavers are narrow, with brown and tan coloration. There's a stripe down the center of the carapace.
One of the few websites I've found that shows clusters of the webs instead of a closeup of one web is here: https://sidewalknature.com/2016/08/15/funnel-spiders/
The spiders I'm dealing with have somewhat thicker webs. Don't know if that's due to being a related species to pictured spiders' webs (Tennessee is 450ish miles South of me (well, SW)), being right above the beach, and therefore breezier, or something else. Most the webs I see are opaque where you can only see vague shadows of foliage (or whatever) underneath the web. In the first picture on the site, you can see one leaf of what looks like lily-of-the-valley sticking up out of the web. That's typical of the funnel weaver webs - the entire web is horizontal, anything vertical will have the web built around it (and usually anchored to it). If the web is left alone, they will add layers to it daily, until it become more like a piece of fabric (silkish) (where I presume the other common name of carpet spider came from). Their everyday webs are thick enough that if a breeze comes along, the entire web, or at least a section thereof, will flap in the breeze, but remain anchored in place.
Mike
I can't do pictures for this year. The colder temperatures earlier this month killed off the spiders - at least the grass spiders, still plenty of normal spider webs around.
If you want to see funnel weaver or grass spider webs, there are plenty of photos online. Just make sure you enter the name as funnel weaver spider, not funnel-web spider. The funnel-web spider is an Aussie denizen, not US. If you see pictures of a large black spider with a sac-like rear end, that's the funnel-web. Funnel weavers are narrow, with brown and tan coloration. There's a stripe down the center of the carapace.
One of the few websites I've found that shows clusters of the webs instead of a closeup of one web is here: https://sidewalknature.com/2016/08/15/funnel-spiders/
The spiders I'm dealing with have somewhat thicker webs. Don't know if that's due to being a related species to pictured spiders' webs (Tennessee is 450ish miles South of me (well, SW)), being right above the beach, and therefore breezier, or something else. Most the webs I see are opaque where you can only see vague shadows of foliage (or whatever) underneath the web. In the first picture on the site, you can see one leaf of what looks like lily-of-the-valley sticking up out of the web. That's typical of the funnel weaver webs - the entire web is horizontal, anything vertical will have the web built around it (and usually anchored to it). If the web is left alone, they will add layers to it daily, until it become more like a piece of fabric (silkish) (where I presume the other common name of carpet spider came from). Their everyday webs are thick enough that if a breeze comes along, the entire web, or at least a section thereof, will flap in the breeze, but remain anchored in place.
Mike