Spring Flings

We have had a couple days of rain (Yes!) and chilliness, which is why I haven't blogged. Today was sunny (but still a bit chilly), but I didn't get a chance to look for bugs until early evening. I didn't expect to find much, because I did some yard work in the late afternoon and wasn't seeing bugs then, but I did find a few. I didn't find anything to be Backyard Bug of the Day, though.

The one thing I found quite a few of is something I have certainly posted enough of, but there were a lot of them today, so I am going to post them now. Winter fireflies:

 Apparently, this is what winter fireflies do in the spring. It's mating season.

The interesting thing about this pair is that while I know they have wings, I don't think I have ever seen them fly. It looks like this one had been for a flight recently.

I took some video of a couple of the pairs, because they were doing some interesting things:

 I've seen lots of different species of insects do this while mating. The part I find amazing about it is that one of the bugs is walking backward, with no idea where they're going. And they just go along with this.

 These two eventually stopped...

 Then there was this pair:

 

 As you can see from the other pictures, this is not how winter fireflies mate. But I was wondering, is this an alternate position, or... what? But I took video of this pair, too... (Sorry, by the way, that the videos are so badly focused. My camera takes video, but that's not really what it's for, so they don't come out great).

So, what I am wondering is... is this just a courtship behavior? Part of selecting a mate, rather than the actual mating? I supposed I should have stuck around and watched, but it was getting on in the evening, and it was cold out. And frankly, at the time it didn't occur to me that they were going to do anything different.

As for other bugs today:

 A swarm of something was hovering near a tree. I can see 11 insects in this shot; how many can you find?

Tiny moth on a tree

Arachnid Appreciation:
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