I saw a massive and beautiful orb weaver on the porch! She was sitting in the center of her web as I came outside, but she heard me approaching and ran for the topmost anchor line, getting out of the way and bracing for impact.
Of course, that impact never happened, so she can enjoy some relief.
There was one square sector of the web that was a dense, frazzled mess of web lines. No prey was caught there; it seems she just wanted that part of the web to look like that. Otherwise, the rest of the web is pretty uniform.
I wonder if she’s keeping it up for the day shift, or if she’s just set it up this evening, and plans to wait for catches overnight instead. That’s a particularly popular spot for orb weavers throughout the years, and they usually figure out that it’s best to leave it up overnight, and pack up during the day.