Trashline Spider 'Cyclosa conica'

As one can see from the photograph (it's that fencing again) this orb weaver spider has a distinctive conical pear-shaped body that makes its identification relatively easy.

The pose it's adopting is also one in which has a particular purpose.

'Trashline spiders' strap food items and waste to an extra thick silk line running through their webs, top to bottom, in the centre of which they sit, legs folded as above, looking for all the world like a random dead insect or food waste, ready to immediately grab anything unfortunate enough to get entangled.

They also adopt this pose in another example of 'thanatosis' blending in with this debris and feigning death when disturbed.

Widespread but localised in the UK, C conica is predominantly found on evergreen shrubs in dark and damp woodland areas, with a peak season of April to late June.