Sap Suckers

 I took two walks in the woods today, the first being purely social, a way to spend time with a loved one who does not live in my household while there's a pandemic going on. The second one was to get my exercise quotient for the day, and the only time I could go was just after dark. On the first walk, a camera would have been ignored in favor of agreeable company. On the second walk there didn't seem to be a point to bringing a camera. I didn't miss it on the first walk. I really wished I had it on the second. Much of what I saw might have been difficult to photograph, as it was mostly aquatic insects, some of them incredibly tiny. But I would have liked to have it to take a picture of the Backyard Bugs of the Day:

I really hope these are not invasive... So, a couple of days ago on my walk I saw a tree that a woodpecker had pecked three holes into, and sap was running down the side of the tree. I looked to see if there were any bugs there, attracted by the sap. There weren't any. But on my walk tonight, I found another tree with sap running down the trunk, and there were quite a lot of insects feeding on the sap. To give you some context on this picture, I spotted this because as I approached the tree, several of the moths flew away, passing through the beam of my flashlight. Then when I shined my light on the tree, several more flew away. So this is only some of the moths that were there. I saw moths flying elsewhere, and I saw some yesterday evening, too. My guess would be that some species has just eclosed after overwintering as pupae, or perhaps they overwintered as adult moths.

Taking my photos with my phone, illuminated with my flashlight, is not ideal, and rather frustrating. Right here I wish I was posting a picture of a spider, but I missed the shot. Instead, I am just going to tell you what I saw. As I was looking at the stream, I saw a spider on some leaves floating at the edge of the water. It was running across the leaves, and then ran right out onto the water, almost all the way across the stream! I have seen spiders walking on water before, but this one was bigger than others I have seen do that. It wasn't huge, but still, I was impressed. The current took it away over a riffle, and I lost sight of it; I hope it was okay. There was a lot going on under the surface of the stream, too–so many beetles, some caddisfly larvae with really long cases, little squiggly things that were too small for me to identify... It was a fascinating evening in the woods.