First Sprouts

 Aaaah! What a beautiful day!

The sun was shining, it was warm, and finally, FINALLY! my snowdrops have sprouted. I have been looking for these for weeks. In previous years they actually bloomed by the beginning of February, and I have been despairing of seeing them this year. Whether they will bloom or not is yet to be seen; they did not last year, all that came up were the leaves. But hope remains...

On the rare occasions of me posting in the last few months I feel like I have written a lot about the fact that I have not been seeing as many bugs, or the bugs I expect to see. One of the species that has been completely absent so far this winter is the winter firefly. A diurnal species (active during the day) that is actually active year round, I expect to see, and have looked for, winter fireflies whenever I have been out on a sunny, not-freezing day, but I haven't seen any this winter... until today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

The sad thing, though, is that most winters this tree has dozens of winter fireflies crawling on its trunk on nice days. Today I found only one.

There was a day last week when I looked at some memory posts and discovered that for two years in a row I had a wasp as Backyard Bug of the Day. Same species. Exact same day of the month. I don't know how warm it was those days, but days in the 60s, like today, are pretty rare in February (although we've had 2 this year. Or was one of them in January? I don't remember). Today I saw the same species of wasp:

For years these would sneak into the house during the winter. Twice I was rudely awakened in the morning by being stung in my armpit. I like them much better when they are outside.

It took me a while to find bugs today, and I was beginning to feel like I have forgotten how to look for them. I did a full bug walk in my regular backyard today, with only small forays into the woods and field, and it has been a long time since I did a bug walk like that, instead of just taking my camera along on my woods walks. Because my knee hurt too much, and because I had things I needed to get done today, I didn't walk in the woods, much less to the stream, so these are all just the normal bugs you'd expect to find in my backyard on a February day when it's 66ºF.

Beetle. I looked this up once, but I have forgotten what it's called. Mostly because I think it looks like a pill, like a capsule, so I think of it as a pill beetle. But that is not its name.

Odd looking ant. It's missing a leg, too.

Birch catkin bug

I went looking for some snow fleas on a rock where I have found them in the past. There were a few there...

... but while I was taking pictures of them, I noticed some unbelievably tiny things walking amongst them. Can you see anything? Mind you, the snow fleas themselves are tiny. The other things were almost too small even to see through the macro lens...

Mite

There was another mite, too, but one that is just big enough to see with the naked eye. It helps that it is bright red:

I suppose this (and the other mites) should be in Arachnid Appreciation, but I don't think anyone is going to be freaked out by these the way they are by spiders.

If you read this blog regularly (well, if you read it regularly when it was a regularly posted blog), or even if you just read the most recent post, you are probably expecting to see this:

Candy striped leafhoppers basking on their usual beech tree. I also found them on several other beech trees.

I always think of twice-stabbed lady beetles as a sign of spring.

Some kind of plant bug.

I saw a few winter ants here and there. That is a species, not just an observation of seeing them in the winter. In fact, today's high of 66.2ºF was pretty close to the top temperature for them to be around. They don't come out in the warmer parts of the year.

Just like our other recent day in the 60s, the temperature is plummeting. I am finishing this around 1:00 AM (and still pretending it's yesterday), and it is below freezing outside, and not expected to be much warmer than that all day Thursday. The weather roller coaster rides on!