A Strange February

We had a quick deposit of snow over the weekend that is already melting away rapidly. It was a pretty gorgeous day today, and though it was cold when I left the house this morning, by the time I got home I knew I was going to have to go out to do a bug walk. I have been holding out hope of finding snow fleas. As of today, I am giving that up. Yes, I have found snow fleas in my backyard in other years, but this year I have not seen a single one (and I never have had the huge masses that you see elsewhere), so I don't think they are here anymore.

So the question really was, what would I see in the backyard today? I walked down the driveway to look around the rocks in front of the house, remembering what I saw in that area a week ago: a snake, on a cold day, only in the 30s. It was much warmer today, in the low 50s, I think (I never checked what the high was), but there IS still snow on the ground, so I was pretty sure that I would not see the snake again.

Until I got to the end of the driveway.

For the benefit of the ophidiophobes (people afraid of snakes) I will put most of the pictures at the end of this post, but I do have to post this one here:

 I guess to an ant, a snake is just another thing to crawl over.

There were not a lot of bugs out today, but finally the winter fireflies are a little more active:

 On the foundation of the house.

 Tucked up in nooks and crannies of tree bark.

 

 I found this fly on the snow. It was alive, and moving around (hence the bad picture, it would not stay still) so it was not affected adversely by the cold very much. It was obviously trying to make a point about flies NOT being just summer bugs, just to annoy its haters.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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And now... the snake(s):
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 I don't know what kind of snake this is, but it looks looks kind of like a black racer, albeit a very small one. Unlike the one last week, it was right out in the open, no doubt to enjoy the benefit of the sunshine. It wasn't particularly bothered by my presence.

 As you can see.

 Trying to see if I can see my reflection in its eye. Nope.

 It did move its head around a little bit as I moved around trying to get a good picture, but mostly it just didn't seem to care that I was there, which was kind of unusual, although maybe in spite of the sunshine it was too cold, being cold-blooded, to really move much.

 I finally got a shot of the tongue! I would flick out whenever I pulled back with the camera, which of course was the moment I could NOT get a picture.

For a bit of perspective, there's the snake, and to the right... snow. Those are two things that I just never expected to see so close to each other.

After seeing the snake I went along and finished my bug walk, but I went back when I was done and the snake was gone... or so I thought. It was no longer in the same spot, but a few feet up the slope... and there was another one!

This has been a strange February...