Lately we have been having quite a few mornings with very thick, heavy fog. All that moisture in the air condenses on many things including windshields (wipers have been necessary on some of these mornings), leaves, flowers, grass, and even the ground. One of the prettiest places that it condenses, though is on threads of spider silk. These tangles of spider silk are produced by bowl and doily spiders, who spin a different kind of web from the classical orb weaver web. Instead, these spiders spin a very thick “bowl” made of a disorganized bunch of silk threads. The bowl is used to capture prey. Above the bowl, they spin a much less dense tangle of silk (the doily) where the spider hangs out waiting for insects to fly or fall into the bowl. If you look carefully, it’s not too hard to spot the bowl, but the doily is often very hard to see. But when there is a light rain or a heavy mist, those nearly invisible strands of silk shine with highlights of water droplets. Those conditions are beautiful to photograph if you have a macro lens. These two pictures were taken on the same foggy morning in an area where there are quite a few bowl and doily spider webs spun between either blades of grass or these flowers that have gone by. The webs are now all abandoned, but nevertheless interesting to look at and photograph, especially when covered in condensation. The bluish fence boards behind the webs added a sense of coolness to the images that is very appropriate to the season.