Things I Can't Explain

I forgot what I wanted to say...

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Mourning dove. I think I have mentioned that this is my least favorite bird. I just can't stand that mournful cooing. But this one was sitting so nicely on the rock outside my kitchen window that I just had to take its picture. Plus, in this particular picture it is doing one of my favorite bird things - puffing itself out to keep warm. Or whyever they do that. It wasn't that cold outside today.

 Here is is when it stopped fluffing out.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I really feel like by now I should know what this is, but I don't. The thing it looks the most like in my books is bark lice, but it doesn't really look that much like it, and I don't usually see it on bark.

The bush that it was on was heavily populated, mostly with candy striped leaf hoppers:

 There were at least twenty of these on the bush that I could see.

 Each on its own leaf (except for one leaf that had two).

 There's two in this picture.

 There was also a cocoon on one leaf. A very small cocoon.

Random Bugs:

 Speaking of bark, I found a bunch of ants marching up and down a tree...

There were fewer March flies around today, and they were engaged in some strange behavior:

 This looks like mating, but those both look like males. And one of them has a different color of eyes than I have seen before.

And I don't know what's going on here, either:

 I think these are all males, too.

 That one on the left has an abdomen that looks swollen and is a lighter color. At first I thought it was a female that is ready to lay eggs, but from the size of its head and eyes, it looks male to me.

On the other hand, I don't really know anything about any of this, so I could just be wrong.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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