What Season Is This?

Sigh. This is not my favorite time of the year.

 Having said that, if the first thing you notice in this picture is the lack of leaves on the trees, then the second thing you notice should be the blue (mostly) sky. Although you probably noticed those things in the opposite order. Either way, the sun came back (the reason there was no blog yesterday is because it rained all day - and yet somehow we only ended up with 1/8 inch of rain. On the other hand, days are short now, especially when it's so cloudy that it's dark all day. But I digress), it was comparatively warm (almost made it to 60ºF). That is to say, it was an improvement over the last few days, and it was a pleasure to be out in the backyard. Even if it was painfully windy at times (seriously, why is it always so windy?). A lot of people in this part of the country say that autumn is their favorite season, and it's mostly because of the colorful leaves, but they seem to forget that about halfway through fall all the trees look like this. And people often talk about how living in this part of the country is great because of the changing seasons, which you don't really get in some of the warmer places in the country. I agree, changing seasons are great, although I certainly prefer some changes over others. We are purported to have four seasons, but I don't think that's true. There's not just winter, spring, summer and fall. There are some in-between seasons, and we're in one now - it's not autumn-like anymore, but it's not winter, either. I'm going to have to come up with a name for this...

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Some kind of hopper that is not in my book.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Another kind of hopper that is not in my book. This one is a real challenge. I see them around quite often, often flying past, but they are almost impossible to photograph, because even if they land right in front of me, they will usually not stick around for a picture. It's also really, really tiny, much smaller than other hoppers I see around here.

Hoppers were the dominant bugs today - Random Bugs:

 This buffalo tree hopper was on the exact same tree where I saw one the other day. This one was much more cooperative, though.

The March flies are still around, though in markedly smaller numbers.

 There were a few on the stile today, and they seemed to be having trouble with the wind blowing their wings askew.

 Tussling again. I can't be sure, but I think these are both males.

 The stile was a popular place for bugs today.

 I saw two of these today, this one...

 ... and this one. I can't tell if they are the same species, but they don't look exactly the same, though. I think they are both female, though, and those long, pointy things are not terrifying stingers but ovipositors.

Earwig.

No arachnids today.