Apricity Appreciation

Today was all about the apricity–the warmth of the winter sun–and microclimates. When I went outside to get the mail there were a couple of flies basking in the sunshine on the side of the house, enjoying the apricity, and when I moved closer to look at them, I could actually feel the heat reflecting back at me. There was a sharp difference in temperature right near the house, compared to how it felt a few feet farther away. It was the same with the bedrock down near the street; in full sun, the rocks are very warm, and the area in front of them was a toasty little microclimate. Most of the rest of the yard, though, was noticeably cooler, and it's not even like there's much shade at this time of the year to make the woods cooler.

I found a fair number of bugs, although nothing that I haven't seen lately. I have been thinking that the way I might approach the blog from now on is only to post if I find something new and interesting, or at the very least to not just post the same bugs every day, but for now I just want to show how much I saw today with the temperatures in the upper 40s. It was almost as many different kinds of bugs as I saw over the weekend when it was in the 60s, and I saw some bugs today that I didn't see then (but didn't get photos of, so I can't even show those). I don't have a Backyard Bug of the Day, because there was nothing that noteworthy, but here are some bugs for your enjoyment:

 Winter ant. The black blur a little below it in the picture is a snow flea.

More springtails:

This one kept curling and uncurling its antennae:

 

Lately I have not been finding springtails on the one rock where they used to always be when there was a puddle, but today they were back:

 

 It was a warm enough day for a few candy striped leaf hoppers to be out, but nowhere near the numbers of the weekend, and today the were all on the leaves, instead of the branches.

 Stonefly

 This woolly bear was on the move today, but very slowly.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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When the sunshine is at the right angle you can see spider threads glimmering all over the backyard, so I know that spiders have been active lately. Today I found one: