Abuzz

I only had a couple of minutes to do a bug walk today, and since it is generally a good guideline that if you want to find bugs, you should look in/on flowers, I decided to check out the blooming crocuses. So far I have not any much luck finding insects on the crocuses, but hey, I had to do something, so that's where I looked. And it paid off!

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 A bee! The first bee of the year! I found it curled up in a crocus–I thought it was dead, but it was just in a stupor. I don't know if that is because it was cold (it was only in the 40s at that point, I think) or if it was drunk on nectar (I don't even know if that can happen with crocuses). I poked it to see if it was a live, and in crawled out of the flower into the next one over, so yes, it was alive. It crawled back and forth among that clump of flowers a few times, and then curled up in the bottom of one of them again.

 I was annoyed to notice that something has chomped some of the crocuses almost down to the stems.

 So covered in pollen!

And there were other bugs in the crocuses, too:

 I didn't get a good look at this; I was dressed up because we were going out, and so I didn't want to kneel down on the ground to get a closer look. It looks a bit like an aphid, though.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

I almost walked right into this caterpillar as it was descending from a tree on a thread.

Peep Peep Peep

Tonight, ah, tonight the spring peepers were singing for the first time this year. What a sweet, joyful sound!

The rest of the day in my backyard was complete garbage. No, that's not true, but the only other good thing in the backyard today was another sound, which I can't photograph for you. But there was a flock of red-winged blackbirds in the trees, singing their song, and that was nice to hear.

I don't even have a Backyard Bug of the Day. Here is the ONLY insect I got a picture of:

 I don't like to have my hand in pictures, but I couldn't help it, this was the best I could do. The benefit is that you can judge the tininess of this bug, which appears to be some kind of Hemiptera nymph, by comparing it to the whorls of my fingerprint.

And here's THE ENEMY!

 Tick. Ick.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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This is probably the smallest spider I have ever seen. It was probably not even a single millimeter long.

Needing a Change

Today REALLY felt like spring. The sun was mostly shining, it was warm out (we hit 60ºF!), and it seemed like a perfect day to find bugs. The bugs disagreed, however, and other than a lot of flies that didn't want their pictures taken, there were not many bugs around today. There were, however, a lot of spiders, and that made me happy (I don't care if that makes me sound weird).

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I found two of these tiny beetles, on different trees. This one posed very nicely.

This one crawled into a crack in the tree bark.

Other Bugs:

Can you see the tiny bug?

Tiny moth (about 1/4 inch long) on the side of the house.

I did see a few birch catkin bugs, one of them crawling on my husband's shoulder.

Sigh... I am tired of seeing the same bugs every day. I need some new bugs.

Warm temperatures make the sap flow, and the ants were out in force to collect it.

Moth attracted to the porch light.

Plume moth, also attracted to the porch light, but not so closely as the one above.

The jumping spiders were out in abundance today; I saw several on the side of the house in different places. Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider missing the two front legs on its left side. I wonder how that affects its ability to jump.

Spider trying to look like a leaf bud.

I saw quite a few of these little orb weavers, too.

The snake was back today. I scared it back into its hole twice, and both times it came back out. The last time I saw it, it slowly made its way down its little hill, and sat there for a while. When I went back to check on it again, it was gone.
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Curled up in kind of a figure 8 today.

On the move...

Without Musings

I thought no deep thoughts on my bug walk today, so I don't really have anything to say today. Therefore, we're going to have to go with "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I'll post a few thousand words' worth for you.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is the largest moth I have seen so far this year. The others have all been really small, about half an inch long.

 Trying to blend in on a tree

 

 I'm starting to see winter fireflies in random places like on the side of the house, but there are still some groups on the trunk of their favorite tree.

 The ants were back in force today.

 Springtail

 Stonefly. This one was about twice the size of the others I have been seeing in the past couple of weeks.

 Small moth

 It is a thrill to see flowers blooming in early spring, simply on their own merits of beauty, but also because it means spring is here. But if you are a bug blogger, or even just someone who liked to look for bugs, there is an added attraction of flowers in that if there are flowers there will usually be bugs feeding in/on them. But so far, I have not been able to find bugs on the flowers (not completely true: I have seen two bugs on the purple crocus that bloomed last week, but both of them flew away before I could get close enough to photograph them). But finally, there's a bug on a crocus!

 Maybe a closer view would be better.

And on the front porch:

 Finally the ichneumon wasp stayed still for a picture.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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I saw these two spiders on a collision course, each approaching the corner of the arm of the chair from a different side. Picture two people walking along the street toward a street corner and then meeting right at the corner, having not seen each other coming...

 Not exactly how it played out, and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the moment they bumped into each other. But they both seemed startled by it, with the lighter colored one really zooming back in consternation. Then it dropped off the arm of the chair to get away.

 So I guess this one won the field.

I had to go out to run errands today, and as I walked past the snake slope, there was no snake, even though it was rather warm and sunnyish, so I figured I must have been right, and the snake had move on. But there it was when I came back, all curled up, basking in the... well, it wasn't really sunny by then...
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 I went inside and got my camera, and of course as soon as I got close, the snake uncurled itself...

 ... and away it went, back down its hole.

Cinematic Inspiration

In the arbor in my backyard there are literary and movie quotes made with bricks:

 This is a quote from the movie Bringing Up Baby, starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It says, "In moments of quiet I am strangely drawn to you, but, well, there haven't been any quiet moments." I was thinking about this quote as I walked around outside today because it encapsulates the feelings I have had about my backyard the past few days. Meaning, it's been too windy and cold, and I don't like that. I love my backyard, but ugh! Why does it always have to be windy? (By the way, I had to brush away a lot of dried leaves to take this picture, and was kind of disappointed not to find any bugs hiding in the leaf litter).

 Here we have an emblem of spring with the remnants of the winter.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 Wasp. I saw this when I was finished with my bug walk, meaning I had gone around the whole yard looking for bugs, and was not actively looking for them anymore, I was just walking around enjoying the sunshine during a lull in the wind. And maybe procrastinating on what I needed to be doing in the house. Anyway, I was just walking around, and this buzzed right past me and landed on the ground. Huzzah!

 And then less than a minute later, about 20 feet away, I saw this wasp crawl out of the leaf litter and then fly away. I wonder if it spent the winter in the leaf litter, and I saw it as it was emerging from its winter snooze.

 2 days in a row with little moths landing on rocks.

It is rare for me to see a twice-stabbed lady beetle's face. Usually they have them tucked under their pronotums (pronota?). But this one was crawling around, so it had to be able to see where it was going, I guess.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Mite. I can appreciate this mite, but today I went for allergy tests and found out that I am severely allergic to a relative of this creature–dust mites. Those I do not appreciate.

 I have had a theory–sorry, hypothesis–about the snakes I have been seeing on the little hill in the front of my house. I think that they had a winter den there, and that snakes have been emerging and dispersing. I think that there were at least 3 individuals, and possibly more (I know there were at least 2, because a few times there were 2 out there at a time). But I think that one of them has stuck around all this time, going back into the burrow when it's too cold, and coming out to bask when it's nice and sunny. Well, today the snake was there when I went out to do my bug walk, but I think later on it moved on...
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 I was taking pictures as usual, and as sometimes happens I got too close, and the snake got annoyed, as you can see from this defensive posture. So I backed off and moved around to watch it from a different spot. The snake started to move toward where I know its hole is–I have seen it disappear down the hold several times. It didn't go down into the hole, though...

It started moving away, following along above the bedrock ledge that runs along the front of my yard by the street. It followed it from a distance to keep from alarming it, and it slithered in a leisurely fashion. It eventually stopped along the top of one of the rock outcrops. I watched it for a few minutes there, and then went on with my bug walk. When I finished by walk I went back to look again, and it was gone. I will be very curious to see if it is back in its usual spot tomorrow, but I have a suspicion that I have seen the last of it.