Pretty spider webs in the garden

Been an age since I put anything on here - too busy with other things!
Need to look at migrating this over to my main google account - but that's a job for another day!

Was out in the garden and noticed some pretty spider webs on a lot of the plants so I took some pictures of them - which are below.

A little bit of drizzle shows them up very nicely - in a short while when the air temperature is below freezing they look even prettier - though not as an affective meal grabber for the spiders then!

Too much to do to write about them or add captions - but the pictures are pretty self explanatory I think.

Morags Fairy Glen

A boring Sunday choice of watching the cup final between two teams I care nothing about or going out for a walk, I opted for the latter.

A short walk from where I'm based at the moment is a little woodland walk around a cascading stream (The Berry Burn) called Morag's Fairy Glen (PA23 7QH). I've been here before at the end of summer 2012 and found it a pleasant enough place in the evening, even more so as I had my bat detector with me and listened to some pipistrelles, but today was just a walk in the intermittent rain - normal for Dunoon!

You could easily miss the entrance to this place, even though it's just off the main road the sign is behind the gate and wall. I don't know much about the history of this place but it would appear that it's partly been a government project of some sort to give people skills and to make an area safe for walking in. The sides are steep, near sheer in some parts, from the pathway down to the stream, a fall would no doubt do you some damage, the fencing should top that - hopefully. So a worthwhile project!

The image below gives details of the hows and whys of the glen and the funding to provide work and training for a few people, hopefully they got some full time employment from the skills learned and their endeavours. It's a nice little place to visit.

Googling "Morags Fairy Glen" brings up a few links but none with very much information on it other than "gifted to the town by Bailie George Jones"  that's from the "Visit Scotland" website - pretty poor on the information, though I suppose it's not what you would call a major tourist attraction.

One thing that's really striking in the glen is the mosses, I've no moss identification skills at all so what species they are is a mystery to me,  but it is resplendent in various shades of green, from the moss that grows on rocks, trees, stumps and just about anything, which is very pleasing on the eye, to the greens of the tree leaves and the ferns.

I'm about 99.9% there are a few species of moss here, in fact I'd be surprised if there wasn't. It grows on everything, like a overgrown green baize that's went very rogue and is intent on covering everything in sight - but beautiful in it's own right.

The burn itself intrigues me, I wonder what invertebrates are living in the less fast flowing parts of it. I know from previous visits here that there are LOADS of Ceratopogonidae or bitting midges as they are more commonly known. I fed the midges, not deliberately - I had no choice,  which undoubtedly where fed on by the pipistrelles, so indirectly I fed the bats, ecology in action I suppose?

The moist ground due largely to the amount of rain this general area gets and the vast amount of moss that acts like a sponge holding the rain and spray from the burn means there are many many places for aquatic invertebrates outside of the active channel itself. This might be surprising to some people but I've found the harpacticoid copepod Moraria spp. (T & A Scott 1893) in grassland that was 5 metres away from a pond, not too unusual if you know about these things.

If I had the space at home and access to a decent microscope I would be having a "wee investigation" as to what's there but alas I'll need to restrict that to a hand lens and a white tray, ah well better than nothing!

There's also some neat little carvings placed about the glen. No idea who did them but they certainly don't look out of place. An otter, a squirrel and a rather large owl. The owl is even placed up a tree for added effect.

Apparently there used to be one of a fairy, but it flew away - or more likely it was stolen and is now residing in someone's back garden!

A nice little place to visit if you are ever up this way and there's a tea room / cafe 10-12 mins walk away - you'd have passed it coming off the Argyll ferry!

One annoying little footnote, someone has now started stapling (laminated) passages from the bible to the handrails of the fencing. I find this rather offensive, so much so I removed the ones I saw and they now reside in my bin! Might not seem a nice thing for me to do but if someone was putting similar about a rock group / football team / or another religion would that be acceptable?