In The Cold, Dark Woods

 We had a tiny bit of snow this morning, but it didn't last, as the temperature was above freezing and the sun appeared occasionally to melt what had fallen. When I went out to get the mail, I happened to see something I wanted to photograph, so I went inside and got my camera.

Nothing momentous, just some drops of water on moss. I think moss is pretty, and I think drops of water are pretty, so drops of water on moss were worth a trip back out with my camera. After I took the pictures of water drops on moss I wondered about what might be living down deep in the mossy patch, but I didn't see anything, and I didn't want to disrupt it by digging into it, particularly because I had no reason to think I would find anything. There is a patch of moss on a rock in the backyard where I have sometimes found incredibly tiny somethings, but I have not seen them anywhere else, and this moss by the front steps was thick. I briefly considered doing a bug walk, as I have the last few days, but it was really cold, just in the mid 30s, and even before my blogging sabbatical I would not bother to go out looking for bugs when the temperature was so close to freezing. So, I went in the house with just my droplets-on-moss pictures.

I went on my woods walk later, in the space of time where late afternoon meets evening, and darkness fell while I was in the woods. By then it was below freezing; I checked the weather sensor and it said 29.7ºF when I went out. So, the last thing I expected to find was insects, but looking for them is a habit, so I checked the tree trunks as I passed them, mostly the beeches, because they have such smooth bark there is nowhere for bugs to hide, so it is easier to see them there than on a tree with rougher bark like an oak. 

I am sure you know where this is going. I found insects. In fact, I found a lot of them. I would say that at least a third of the beech trees (and there are a lot of beech trees) had stoneflies on them. And they were active, too, crawling around on the trunks, not frozen into a stupor. I know they are winter bugs, but still, when the temperature drops below freezing I don't expect to see them. 

They've been Backyard Bug of the Day before, so I am not going to call them that today, but here they are, only a few of the many I saw (including more than a dozen on one tree):

 

Also, and ugh, I should NOT be sharing this picture, because it's so awful, but it was such a surprise to see this tonight:

Another little caterpillar. This one definitely was feeling sluggish from the cold. It was moving, but very, very slowly.

Sigh... I used to be proud of the photography on this blog. Now it's all blurry cellphone photos taken by flashlight...

The one place I did expect to see insects tonight was in the stream. It's not frozen–yet–and there've been insects there almost every night for... well, months, I guess. I was surprised at how many I saw, though. Over a dozen beetles, and multiple caddisfly larvae, in different pools up the stream:

Here's a beetle and a caddisfly larva together. I had to wait for this shot, for the beetle to come within the same space as the caddisfly larva.

Here you can just see the larva's head sticking out.

There's a beetle and a caddisfly larva close together here, too, but you can't see the beetle because it scurried under the leaf.

Two caddisfly larvae that I think are different species because their cases are made of different materials:

Plant matter on the left, sand on the right.

I took a little video of the caddisfly larvae, so you could see them move:

 

Who knew, that on cold, dark nights in the woods, there was so much insect activity?

Arachnid Appreciation:

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This was too high up the tree for me to get closer. A different species from the spider I saw a couple of nights ago. It was dangling from its thread up there.