Rain, Rain...

Rain is the enemy of backyard photography. It's wet, it's dark and gloomy, and it's hard to find bugs because they are hiding from the rain. It was cold today, too - only in the forties, so bugs are less active anyway. However, I enlisted the help of an umbrella-wielding assistant today, and got a few shots. Even though it wasn't really good weather for looking for bugs,  I knew where there were bugs to be found - for the last several days these little critters have been clumped on a bush in front of the house, and it is my guess that they will be there until they turn into whatever it is they will become next...

Backyard Bug of the Day

I don't think they are caterpillars, because they seem to have too many prolegs, but maybe when they get bigger it will be easier to tell. I assume they are feeding on the needles of the bush in some way, but they don't seem to be actually eating away at it, so maybe they are somehow sucking something out of it? Again, maybe it will be obvious when they are bigger. They are creepy little buggers...

Backyard Bud of the Day comes from something I actually planted in my yard, which is a rarity (though I suppose I should get some credit for the wildflower seeds I strew about every spring) since my idea of landscaping mostly involves just letting things grow where nature plants them. So, here's clematis. I am not sure if this is a leaf bud or a flower bud - probably a leaf bud.

More rain expected tomorrow, and my assistant won't be home until late, so who knows what to expect from the backyard?

(I had an English teacher in high school who for the two years I was in his classes wrote "conclusion needs work" on the bottom of every paper I turned in. This may be what he was talking about...)

Welcome to My Backyard

You've heard the quote: "Do one thing every day that scares you." I think Eleanor Roosevelt was asking a lot with that one, but here I go: today's scary thing is starting a blog. If you're afraid of bugs, or spiders, or the other things that wander around in the backyard, then your scary thing can be reading this blog, because that's some of what I am going to be sharing with you.

Two years ago I started the Backyard Bug of the Day project, and I wish I could say that I had a profound purpose for doing it, but I didn't. What I had was a nice camera and a macro lens. That meant I could take nice close-up pictures of bugs. In other words, I started taking pictures of bugs every day, and posting them on the internet, just because I can. People were (mostly) really cool about it, so I kept doing it.

Up until now Backyard Bug of the Day has just been something (possibly) weird I do on facebook, but today I am going a bit more public with it, which is kind of scary because the internet is really not a very nice place. Hence the invocation of Eleanor Roosevelt. I meant to do this last year, but I am such a non-techie that I didn't get past the part about choosing a name. I meant to start at the beginning of spring, then the beginning of summer, then the beginning of a new year, then the beginning of spring again, and here I am, starting a blog on a random Tuesday. Well, there's not much going on today...

My facebook thing has been called Backyard Bug of the Day, and recently I added Backyard Bud of the Day (because it's spring!), but here, I am just going to share what's going on in my backyard. And front yard. And side yard. And sometimes in my house, because bugs get in there, too. There will be a lot of bugs, and spiders (yes, I know they are not bugs. In fact, most of the things we all call bugs are not bugs - there's only one part - Class? Order? Group? Something like that? - of the insect world that are classified as bugs. I am going to use the term REALLY loosely), but also birds, rabbits, deer, raccoons, maybe a bobcat if I am really lucky, flowers, fungi... Whatever I find interesting, I'll share.

A caveat: I am not an entomologist. Or a biologist. Or an arachnologist. Or an ornithologist. Or a biologist. Or any other kind of ologist, I am just a person with a backyard, an interest in nature, and a camera. So don't ask me to identify everything you see here. Also, I am an extremely amateur photographer, so, you'll just have to take what you get with that.

There's probably more I should say about all of this, maybe explain the rules I use in my BBotD project, but I think I'll just go over that another day. For now, here's today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

Not a very good view? How about this shot, then:

No? Well, here's your first lesson about taking pictures of bugs in the backyard: they don't always cooperate. This one was on a branch a little too high over my head for me to get a better shot at it.

Since it's our first day, how about a couple of Arachnid Appreciation pictures? (Steve, if you are reading this scroll past the next two now):

Now, Backyard Bud of the Day: Jack in the Pulpit

I think I'll close my first ever blog with a bit of backyard whimsy - muddy footprints on my back porch:

Thanks for reading. Welcome to my backyard.

Edit: I knew I was not going to get the hang of this so fast... There was one other picture I wanted to share. I don't normally take pictures of this particular kind of animal, but this one was soooooo tiny, it almost proves that baby versions of anything are cute:

Don't expect to see a lot of slugs here; they creep me out. Thus endeth (again) the post for today.