Learning By Watching

I've been debating about whether to write a blog post tonight. Obviously, I decided yes. The reason I wasn't going to is that I didn't see anything in the backyard today that I have not posted pictures of a million times before. Or at least, nearly every day for the last two weeks. But then I looked at the pictures I took today, and decided to show some of them to you.

But first, let me expound a bit on something that I mentioned yesterday, which is that some of the things I have learned about bugs I have learned just from my own observations. I haven't found out anything new to science (that I know of), or anything monumental like that, but it is a good feeling to realize you have figured out something you didn't know before. For instance, today I spent most of my time outside in the backyard observing multiple swarms of winter crane flies. Swarming bugs have been a popular item in the backyard for several weeks, first the March flies, and now the winter crane flies. What I realized today is that they behave differently. When I have seen swarms of March flies they might be anywhere in the yard, over the lawn, or the flower beds, on the paths. When they are not swarming, the March flies rest on leaves on plants. The winter crane fly swarms, however, I find next to trees. The crane flies bob up and down in their swarms, and when I get to close, they land on the ground, whether on the leaf litter, or on the dirt, whatever is on the ground by the base of the tree. Perhaps not important observations, but now I know if I see a swarm on the lawn, they are probably March flies, and not winter crane flies. Of course, the fact that the March flies disappeared right around the time the winter crane flies started swarming means I am not likely to confuse them - their seasons don't have much overlap.

So, as for the pictures:

 As you may have noticed, it's not so easy getting pictures of swarming bugs, these in particular, because they sort of disappear into thin air when I get too close to them. Well, they land on the ground, anyway. But this swarm today let me get close enough that you can actually see that they are crane flies! Not that it isn't fun when they look like fairies...

 I saw several swarms today, all much larger than the swarms I have seen in the past - maybe 50-100 insects instead of 12. Huge difference.

 Aaaaaand then they land and disappear. There are several in this picture, see if you can find them (sometimes all you can find is their shadow).

Other bugs:

 Fly

 Fly

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I didn't see any arachnids to appreciate today, but there have been spiders active in the backyard, because there were threads all over the place - not full webs, but individual threads going from plant to plant, or branch to branch, or across a path.