Unwanted Thoughts

I've mused a lot in my backyard this week, but everything always comes back to the pandemic we are currently under attack from, and I don't want to write about that, so I won't. Just appreciate that it's spring, and nature is waking up:

 

It's been a surprisingly unbuggy week for me. Not surprising that I didn't see any bugs on the day that it snowed all afternoon, but I expected more on some of the other days. I see a lot in the woods, but I don't have my camera with me then. I saw my first bumblebee of the season in the woods–and then saw one the next day in the rock garden, but I didn't have my camera to hand, and it zoomed away immediately anyway. Today, however, I did I a nice, long bug walk, and even though the temperature had not yet reached its lovely, springy peak of 60ºF yet when I was out with my camera, there were a lot of insects around, representing a plethora of orders.

Because it's where the Backyard Bug of the Day is classified, let's begin with Coleoptera, aka beetles. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 There were a couple of these on a tree trunk. I still don't know what kind of beetle these are, and I am not going to look it up. I don't want to know, because I know their name won't do them justice.

Other Beetles:

 Winter firefly. It is shocking and worrying to me how few of these I have seen this year. There is a particular tree where there are usually dozens on the trunk on days like today, and this year there are none. I spotted two today, on different trees.

 Weevil

 So many insects today that I could get two in one picture, the weevil, and our next Order for today, Hymenoptera. Some kind of wasp, possibly a sawfly (which is a wasp, not a fly).

 I think this is an ichneumon wasp of some kind.

 Also in the order Hymenoptera: ants.

As for Hemiptera:

 On the candy striped leaf hoppers' favorite tree, a candy striped leaf hopper and a sharp shooter.

Diptera:

 I think this is a bottle fly.

 I am not sure if these are flies. There were a lot of them on the compost pile, sitting on the detritus there and beating their wings.

I don't know what order springtails are in... Okay, I just looked it up, and there are multiple orders of springtails. I am not going to get more detailed than that, but I did see two different species of springtails today:

 This one is a snowflea.

Lepidoptera:

 I haven't seen a butterfly yet this year, but moths have been around a lot lately.

Orthoptera:

 Greater anglewing katydid eggs

I took a walk in the woods while it was snowing the other day. It snowed all afternoon, but the snow didn't stick, because the ground was too warm, but it did stick on the many, many little spiderwebs throughout the forest. I didn't see any spiders that day, but it was obvious that there are a lot of them out and active lately, because there were a lot of webs. Today I saw a lot of spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.