Frogs Rock

Today we needed some small stones for a gardening project, so my husband raked some off of a dirt pile behind the garden shed. I had to yell, "Stop!" because I saw one of the stones move.

 Guess which one?

In the fall I like to mention that it is a good thing to leave your leaves on the ground, at least in your flowerbeds and garden if you can't bring yourself to leave them on the lawn, because there are a lot of animals that shelter in the leaf litter during the winter. It's mostly insects, but other small animals, too. Like frogs. Backyard Amphibian of the Day:

 This is a gray tree frog. It spends the summer in trees, but in the winter is gets cozy under the leaf litter. Apparently, we woke it up raking the leaves off the dirt pile to find rocks. Note the big toe pads for climbing trees. Also, it's right hand, or whatever you call it, is gripping really tight to that leaf. I picked it up to move it off the dirt pile where we were working, and it did not want to let go of that leaf.

I think it liked sitting in my gloved hand, though–it was probably warmer than the dirt pile.

 It looks an awful lot like a rock. It's a good thing I saw it move, or it would have gotten raked.

 I found out something interesting about this frog today. It has bright yellow markings on its sides and legs that you don't see when its legs are tucked up against its body.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Bee

In spite of the mild temperature (60ºF), I found very few bugs today:

 I only saw a few bees on the dandelions.

Can you see the insect here? It is very small:

 Springtail on violet

I didn't even see the insect on this dandelion when I took the picture:

 I am not even sure it is anything, but it looks a bit like a springtail.

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Really uncooperative mite

Most Popular

The forecast for this morning included a possibility of snow. I was a bit incredulous when I read that, but it's April in Connecticut, almost anything can happen with the weather. As it turn out, there was no snow, it was a pretty sunny afternoon, and the high temperature was in the 60s. Nice for me and the bugs.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of leaf hopper nymph. This picture does not adequately express how small this is. It is small enough that I had to look at it through the camera to see for sure that it was a bug, and not just a speck on an unfurling leaf.

Today there were two popular flowers in the backyard. #1: Leafy Spurge:

 This flower attracted several Orders of insects today. Hymenoptera (in this case, an ant)

 

 Coleoptera (beetle)

 

 I am not sure if this a gnat (tiny Diptera) or a tiny wasp (Hymenoptera).

 Where there are lots of bugs feeding on a plant is a good place for a predatory bug to hunt. Thus we find an assassin but feeding on a sweat bee on the leafy spurge. Orders Hemiptera and Hymenoptera

Attractive plant #2 was, again, the dandelion:

 Sweat bee and...

 A gnat, and two springtails.

 Sweat bee

Gnats. There were SO MANY gnats out today. I would like to make a disclaimer: I don't like all bugs. I don't mind gnats on a dandelion. I don't like gnats flying around my head.

 

 Even when I am not trying to take a picture of a bug, I end up with a picture of a bug. Can you see the candy striped leaf hopper on the flowering crabapple?

One lone bee finding nectar in flowering crab apple flowers. This tree isn't really blooming yet.

I came across this scenario twice today, with different species of ants:

 

  I don't know what this behavior is all about. Two ants with their mandibles locked together; I can never tell if one is pushing the other, or one is pulling the other.

 

 Different, much smaller species

 It's difficult when the flowers in trees are so far above my head.

 Hover fly

 This tree is oozing huge amounts of sap, in which some kind of fungusy goo appears to be growing. It attracted a lot of little flies, two species of which you can see here.

 Not mating, but I suspect that is a male who hopes to have the female (larger one, giving the piggyback) as his mate.

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Spider on a broken flowerpot

Basement Bug of the Day

It was cold and raining today, so I didn't go for a bug walk, but I did find an interesting bug inside my house to be Backyard Bug of the Day:

Camel cricket. They are apparently common in basements, because they like dampness, but I found this one in my dining room. We had just been down in the basement, so it may have hitched a ride upstairs with us. This picture was taken outside on the porch when I brought it outside. I thought it was interesting that there has perhaps been a cricket in my house for months and I haven't heard it chirp, so I looked it up and read that unlike most other crickets, camel crickets don't make any sounds. They have many other common names, including spider cricket and a portmanteau of that, spricket, which I quite like. They reportedly eat fabric, and are disdained for eating curtains. It always makes me sad when I look insects up on the internet and everything I read is written by and for people who hate them. I think it's cool, although I admit I would not like it to eat my curtains. Outside is definitely a better place for it than either my basement or my dining room.

Blooms Under Blue Sky

 If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is my thousand word into to today's blog. Blue sky, flowers blooming, springtime at its best. That's all I need to say about what kind of day it was today in the backyard. Those flowers are flowering crabapple, but not one of the two that I planted over 20 years ago. This one I think is probably an offspring of one of those, planted in the woods by a bird. I have a few of those, and this is the first of the crabapples to bloom this year.

There were a few bees on that tree (too high and fast for photos), but the most popular flower in the backyard today was the dandelions:

 A variety of bugs were attracted to the dandelions, of which I have way more this year than usual. Here is a beetle and a bee.

 This one had a beetle and two bees.

 Bee

 Beetle

The bee fly was back in the rock garden, feeding on the creeping myrtle:

Ants were busy today:

 Ant carrying a desiccated caterpillar

 Several ants wrangling with or over another desiccated caterpillar. There are different sizes of ants here, so I am assuming that they are different species, but I don't really know for sure.

 The leafy spurge is blooming, and it is always popular with ants.

 Assassin bug feeding on a click beetle, atop pine flowers

Click beetles in a mating frenzy:

 There is a mating pair here, along with a number of others who wanted to be involved in that activity themselves.

 

 Mating winter fireflies

 Beetle

Bees on the pussywillow flowers, way above my head:

 Hoverfly

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 This is the spider that lives in the package bin. Fortunately for the spider, all of the packages we have received lately were small enough to fit in the mailbox.

Tiny spider with a web high up in the peach tree (this picture was taken with a zoom lens, not the macro)