In soft sunlight the woodland wakes. Brimstone butterflies boast their presence, a raven pair rattle overhead, and the first scents of warming earth drift upwards. Spring shouts its arrival across Knightwood Inclosure, home of the New Forest’s girthiest tree, the Knightwood Oak. It falls on deaf ears though; knelt in mud, immersed in undergrowth, I’m mesmerised in micro.
In front of me, suspended on barely-there thread, hangs a speck of a spider. It was the disco-ball water droplets, clinging to its intricately woven web, that enticed me in. The spider is so small that my eyes and camera struggle to focus, flicking from a cream and tawny-coloured orb to a faded heather flower. When I do lock on, the abdominal markings gain clarity: inky black lines encasing two small spots.
I am (unnecessarily, I know) scared of spiders, big ones; ones the size of my thumbnail seem to be acceptable, but it does mean I have no idea what I’m looking at. A question for the social media hive mind. This “not knowing” catches in the web of my brain, a realisation that my knowledge of my favourite haunt is in fact only the size of that spidery-speck hanging in the heather. I have got too comfortable in my familiarity with the New Forest.
Heading back to the car, I make a point to pay attention: I watch the brimstones patrolling their patches, and locate the raven pair to see in which trees they choose to settle. I take thetime to peer into a penny-coloured pool, and watch as the leaves morph into the hunched forms of common toads.
That evening a notification pings on my phone. The elusive arachnid has a name. Mangora acalypha. Cricket bat spider – so called because those abdominal markings resemble a cricket bat. At first I’m unsure; these heathland and woodland residents are so varied in colouration. Some paler, some darker, some with more prominent cricket bats than others. After some scrolling, a familiar sight appears. The tiny forest dweller that humbled me earlier. My little web‑wrapped reminder to always look a little bit closer, always be a little more curious. The world has many more secrets to be revealed.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com
