Last night, we found a very neat spider on the pier at Crews Lake – a starbellied orb weaver. It was probably getting ready to spin its web in a pretty popular place, between the slats of the pier railing.
Lots more pictures are to be had here, at iNaturalist.
Orb weavers typically build a new web every evening. Towards morning, they consume the web, leaving the base line to rebuild on, and the silk proteins get “recycled.” Coming soon: a blog post on how orb weaver webs are constructed.