what on earth is it?

There it was on a straw like stalk of one of the pond plants. Was it another nymphal case of a damsel fly or similar? I daren't touch it until the photographs had been taken, in case I lost it in the water.

a view from the side as well as underneath. I daren't try taking a photo of the top of the creature for fear of getting the camera wet.

I touched it gently and then of course all became clear! The thing was a spider.

Having disturbed it I may just as well take as many photos as possible. If you click on this picture a larger and more clealrly defined one will open.

I'd managed to disturb it so much that it fell into the pond! So I rescued it with a small twig and placed it for safety in an old piece of log beside the pond where it proceeded to curl up and hide itself away, as small as possible but not so small that I couldn't experiment with a new macro lense. For a better picture click on the picture to the right.

Incidentally I believe that the spider was a common garden one, Araneus diadematus.

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