Country diary: The art of noticing rewards with a mini glittering web | Jeni Bell

Knightwood Inclosure, New Forest: I realise my knowledge of my favourite haunt is the size of the spidery-speck hanging in the heather 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