The Autumn of spiders continues unabated. I've noticed a number of orb web spiders of some sort living on the gazebo in the back garden, but I never got around to figuring out what they are until today. They're mostly very shy, disappearing into holes in the metalwork when I come close, but after trying over several hours I found one that was happy to be photographed in the open. This shot was taken with flash at night, hence the glowing eyes.

UKSafari.com helped me identify this as a Missing Sector Spider (Zygiella x-notata). Wikipedia also has a decent description. This spider generally leaves part of its web empty apart from a signal thread to the hideout, but I can't say I noticed this. However at the time I hadn't identified it, so I'll have to go back and see if the webs conform to type. I remember them being a bit messy and not classy orb webs at all mind you!

Update: I went back as promised and got a picture of the missing sector web itself.