Missing Things

Some observations from my backyard today: I saw a lot of spiders. When it's been freezing for a few days, 50ºF feels almost hot. Even when I think I don't have any expectations, I probably do. People who think that flies all drop dead when the temperature drops below zero are totally wrong. It's not something I was able to photograph, but standing in the right spot relative to the sunlight coming between the trees, I could see a plethora of insects flitting in the air, winter crane flies, I assume, and it was fascinating and wonderful to see my backyard teeming with dancing bugs in the middle of November. It is sad and worrisome, though, to think about the kinds of bugs I expect to see in the fall, and in great numbers, that I saw very few of, or none at all. And on that subject...

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Case bearing caterpillar. Usually in the fall there is a period of time when these are everywhere, particularly on (or dangling from) the goldenrod plants that have gone to seed. This year I have seen three. This one was on a pokeweed plant.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 I always get confused about these, and could never remember if this is a frog hopper or a spittle bug. I looked it up today in Insect of New England and New York by Tom Murray, and it turns out it's both. This might be an alder spittlebug, though the book mentions that you can see those from June to first frost. Well, we had our first frost, and our second, and our third, and... the bug is still there. Even after our first snow. It was pretty active, too. I found it marching up the trunk of the tree, and then it crawled around for a while on this stem.

 It was just the kind of day that the candy striped leaf hoppers enjoy for hanging out on their favorite tree. I can see ten here.

 Winter ant, I presume.

Rove beetle:

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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All of the spiders I saw today were tiny. Itsy bitsy, even. I only got pictures of two of them:

 This one was on the chrysanthemums, which a week ago would have been a fine place to find an insect to eat, but not now.