Country diary: Teasing out spiders with a tuning fork

Summary

Hexham, Northumberland: Revelations aplenty as we embark on a spider hunt with a man called Fran who knows his arachnids We gathered at the bandstand, an elegant Edwardian building in the abbey grounds, all slender ironwork and tented top. Fran Garcia was leading a spider walk and our group of 10 included two children, one of them my granddaughter. Fran is a member of the British Arachnological Society and communicates knowledge with lively humour. As an introduction to spiders he explained their anatomy and web building using a bizarre range of items: wire and ropes of varying thicknesses, a…

Description from The Guardian.