I walk my bichon frise three times a day around the adjacent Mount Pleasant Estate on the west side of Winsford, which is a 1980’s council estate and Liverpool overspill. On the night walks I carry a torch so I can pick up my dogs poo and avoid treading in other people’s. On these night walks I would have a look for spiders on the walls and fences surrounding the estate’s residents gardens and the boundaries of the adjacent assisted living complex. 

On the 11/06/25 I had observed a female Parasteatoda sp in its distinctive web and a handful of Theridion type species on the evening dog walk and after returning home and cleaning the dogs feet I gathered up my collecting kit and set out to retrace my steps. Halfway towards where I had seen the Parasteatoda sp I spotted a tangled web roughly six inches above the ground at the junction of a dwarf wall supporting metal railings above and a wider brick pillar to which the railing were also fixed. This boundary abutted the pavement of Mount Pleasant Drive (a fairly busy B road) with a roughly mown recreation ground on the other side. The web, seemed to have a small structure on top of its retreat (I read later that it is called a pyramid), and had been built above an ants nest. I put my hand under the web and brought it upwards, but no spider fell out; so similarly to when collecting Cryptachaea blattea I ended up pulling the retreat apart and with a little effort pootering up the inhabitant. Once the spider was potted up I continued to retrace my steps collecting the Parasteatoda sp, all Theridion like species and anything else that caught my eye. The following day I got the catch under the microscope to find that the female Parasteatoda sp was a P. lunata, all the Theridion type species were Platnickina tincta (1m/11f), there was also a female Ero aphana and the small spider from the dwarf wall was a female Cryptachaea riparia. 

Almost a month later (07/07/25) on another evening dog walk a suspected female Sardinidion blackwalli was spotted under the overhang of a coping stone on a six foot brick wall. Once again, as soon as the dog was cleaned up, I set out to retrace my steps and collected the specimen along with any other spider that caught my eye. Once under the microscope the S. blackwalli was confirmed. There were also a further two female E. aphana amongst the catch, this species has proved to be frequent around the Mount Pleasant Estate being found under the overhangs of coping stones of the brick walls on the estate as well as being beaten from shrubs that comprise the many plantings around the estate.