Halloween is here, and according to the RSPB, it happens to be the best time of year to see some of Britain’s biggest spiders. With so many benefits to nature and your garden, it’s time to start to embrace our eight-legged friends rather than be running scared.

There are some 650 species of spider in Britain totaling more than 750 million spiders crawling around our homes, gardens and countryside. Luckily, some of the frequently seen spiders are actually quite distinctive and are at their biggest right now, which means larger and more obvious webs – perfect for Halloween Venture into your garden and it’s more than likely you’ll come across the appropriately named garden spider. With a distinctive white ‘cross’ marking on their back, they help us by trapping or grabbing millions of insects each year, many of which are pests to crops and us. The females will have grown particularly large this time of year and create magnificent orb webs slung between vegetation.

Other creepers that may be lurking behind the fireplace, under the sofa or in the bath include the giant house spider, its smaller cousin the house spider, and the spider that you’d have seen hanging upside down in its web in the upper corner of your rooms; the daddy long-legs spider. These spiders are wonderfully effective predators. Although no threat to us, they consume around 700,000 tonnes of invertebrates every year, which is a colossal amount of food.

“If you were the size of a fly, sure, you’d have every reason to be afraid – very afraid – of spiders.” said Adrian Thomas, the RSPB’s wildlife gardening expert and author of RSPB Gardening for Wildlife, “But they really are one of the wonders of the natural world and are more afraid of you than you are of them. They might cause you to shudder, but the real nightmare would be a world without them.”

So why not make your garden spider friendly to help give your Halloween decorations a more lifelike feel this year. Leaving pot plants on their side to create a sheltered micro-habitat or creating a dead log pile will encourage more wildlife into your garden and create a perfect home for nature.