I have a feeling that every nature photographer is crazy about spider webs. I am always looking for them!! So, you can imagine my excitement when I discovered these sugar-coated beauties to focus on! The bad thing is that these are NOT spider webs. They are webs created by a webworm, which are normally not a big deal but they were very distructive this past year. Something about the long wet spring we had in the northwestern United States caused optimal conditions for these pests and their population exploded. Webworms cover leaves and sometimes entire trees with their webs. Adult moths lay eggs on the underside of leaves in the spring and summer, which hatch into caterpillars and spin webs around the leaf, which they eat. This is normally ok if only part of a tree is covered. Unfortunately, countless trees were completely covered with webs from these worms and most or all of the leaves were eaten, killing the trees. We do not know if any of the badly covered trees on our property will recover, but we are crossing our fingers.

If you would like to learn more about webworm moths and their habits, here is a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_webworm

If you would like to see pictures of trees covered with webworms, here is a very good page: www.bugoftheweek.com/bow-reader.jsp?document_name=/wt/bug...