I stumbled across my first wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi) in the summer of 2008. We’d been mowing a road verge with the National Trust and whilst sweeping up the grass noticed this extraordinary looking creature:

It’s not what you’d expect from a British spider – the distinctive black, white and yellow stripes give it a dramatic appearance, and at 2cm it’s fairly large – something you might imagine encountering in the tropics, shortly before it bit you and ruined your holiday!

Sure enough it’s a foreign invader, more commonly found in the Mediterranean and first recorded on UK shores in 1922. Since then it’s made the south coast its home and, as conditions have warmed, has spread steadily north in recent years.

The Isle of Purbeck is at the southern extreme of its range in this country so it must have been present for some while. The following summer the female spiders were present in large numbers in a meadow at Durlston Country Park outside Swanage and I photographed them a little hastily with my point-and-click at the time.

When I acquired a DSLR camera capable of HD video recording this year, and a decent macro lens, I decided the wasp spider invaders would make a good subject for a short video:

Canon 550D | Canon EF-S 60mm Macro | Adobe Premiere Pro CS4

I couldn’t find the spiders in the places I’d spotted them previously, but while clearing another fenceline with the National Trust we stumbled across this small colony living on the edge of Godlingston Heath on the Studland peninsula.

Over a couple of visits I shot some decent footage and stills at very close range with the 60mm macro lens. The conditions were a little breezy, which makes life difficult at very shallow macro depths of field but I’m pleased with the results.

Wasp spider macro detail

Try as I might I could not track down the male wasp spider, which is smaller and quite dull in colour. I would also have liked to include some footage of the spiders’ large egg sacs, but the weather turned wet and stormy towards the end of the month and by the time I returned the colony was washed out. Only a couple of females remained and no egg sacs.