I was lucky to spot this nearly perfect orb web because the sun was behind it yesterday. The web was virtually invisible from the other side.
The bad news is that I couldn’t find the orbweaving spider – the Frank (Frances?) Lloyd Wright – that created this masterpiece. I spent half an hour looking in vain at the strands of that web with my glasses on and mosquitoes humming in my ear. The object in the center apparently is wrapped in cobweb silk.
I went back to the website (sic) this morning with some magnifying equipment and found that the beautiful web was a shambles – but, by hanging my handkerchief behind the remainder of the web, I found a small spider-like creature hanging on one of the remaining web anchors:
I haven’t been able to identify that creature; perhaps you can help. It’s about 1/8 inch in size, maybe smaller. The original circular web was about 8 inches in diameter and hung between two trees on the bank of a dry stream bed within fairly heavy mixed woods. The center of the original web was about four feet above the ground. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 28 and 29, 2022.)