Seasonal Variety

First, I just want to say that winter is confusing:

 This is in the front yard.

 This is in the backyard. (Also confusing: why is front yard two words, but backyard one word?). We had a touch of snow the other day (why I did not do a bug walk that day), and in the sunnier parts of the yard it has melted, but in much of the backyard it has stuck around. I don't know what kind of animal footprint this is.

Also in the backyard, some animal did some digging, and the daffodils under the leaf litter have sprouted already.

I haven't blogged in a couple of days because it has been cold, so most of the last few days I haven't done a bug walk. I did do one a few days ago that I didn't blog about because all I found was a bunch of springtails, and it seemed too boring to post about just that. There may have been other things around in the last couple of days, but I didn't think there would be, and I didn't want to spend the time on it when there were other things to do. I wasn't going to do a bug walk today, either, because the temperature was only in the high 30s around noon, but I had to go to an appointment, and when I got back I went to get the mail from the mailbox, and happened to see a tiny beetle scurrying across one of the stone steps that lead up to the house. It scooted under a leaf at the edge of the step, and though I didn't think I would be able to find the beetle again (I didn't), that indicated to me that perhaps there would be interesting things to see in the backyard today, so, I went in and got my camera.

Ugh, this is a boring explanation. Anyway, the stone steps have a lot of leaves on them, and I thought I should remove them because wet leaves on stairs are a dangerous thing, although you know that I am an advocate for letting leaf litter lie. Removing it just demonstrated the benefits of leaf litter to insects in winter, because there was quite a bit of life going on under the soggy leaves.

As soon as I moved the leaves away I saw springtails, lots of them, most of which immediately sprung away. But not all:

 I saw two species, this one...

 ... and this one.

 Here they are together...

And then there's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This looks like a springtail, but it is MUCH bigger, at least 3 times as long as others that look like this. So I don't know if that's what it is.

 I also found this stinkbug. It looks dead, but its legs moved, so I think it was just cold. I moved it back under some leaves, since that is obviously the place it wants to spend the winter. It got me thinking that if I wanted to find bugs every day I could look under the leaf litter in other spots, but the whole point for the insects is to shelter under there, and I don't want to reduce their chances of survival, so I am not going to do that. But for safety reasons I had to disturb anything living under the leaf litter on the front steps.

 There were a few ants under there, too.

Meanwhile, in the backyard:

This stonefly was active, running up the trunk of a tree.

This winter firefly is still in the same place it has been for weeks, though every few days it changes position.

I found a springtail in the backyard, too, on some snow (although this is not the kind that is a called a snowflea).

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Also under the leaf litter on the front steps. I am not sure if it is a mite, or a really tiny spider.