Purple Carpet of Spring

 Spring is in full swing as far as the flowers in the rock garden are concerned, although not much else is in complete agreement. The bugs I expect to find in the rock garden during this season are certainly not; with a carpet of purple flowers there's usually a symphony of buzzing wings as a soundtrack when you walk by, but insects have been scarce again this year, which continues to worry me. I saw my first bumblebee of the season yesterday, and today happened to find another for Backyard Bug of the Day:

When I got home from Easter mass this morning I spotted a butterfly and a bumblebee in the rock garden, and while they both flew off before I could even attempt to take a picture with my phone, I went inside and got my camera and after waiting patiently for a couple of minutes a bumblebee came back (I have no way of knowing if it was the same one).

I didn't have a lot of time for a walk in the woods today, but I took my camera out with me anyway, in the hopes of seeing some bugs–well, in the hopes of seeing a mourning cloak butterfly, to be honest. I didn't, although I did catch a glimpse from afar of another butterfly. I was nowhere near close enough to identify it, but if could have been a comma or question mark, which are also the two possible ids of the one I saw in the rock garden this morning.

I actually didn't see many bugs on my walk, other than gnats, which I wasn't able to photograph. But I unwittingly took photos of a couple of them that I didn't see at the time:

Do you see the bugs?

From the red visible inside these bugs' bodies, I think these flies were biting this frog and feeding on its blood.

I didn't notice any of these bugs when I was taking the pictures of the frogs.

The frogs were at the small pond, where there are still no salamander egg masses–sadly, it is beginning to look like I was right last year when I prophesied that there would not be eggs there anymore if no salamanders hatched there last year. However, I have spotted a couple more egg masses in the big pond:

The macro lens is not a great tool for a shot like this, but that's what I had with me today.

Another interesting sign of spring is clumps of hair that I am pretty sure are from deer shedding their heavier winter coats. 

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I almost walked right into this tiny spider's tiny web:

We seem to have figured out where the snakes hang out–or at least, these two snakes, which we have spotted several times this week in the same location:

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It's hard to tell, but this one is wet; it had obviously been in the water. I was surprised last year when I saw a garter snake in the stream, and in spite of the fact that I saw that, I was surprised a few days ago when I got too close to one and it zipped into the water.

Trying To Do What's Right

 Since our first springtime in our woods we have been finding salamander egg masses in the small pond in early spring. I think the first year we found them on April first, and it has been around that time the other years, until last year it was on this date. The small pond is a vernal pool, or at least seasonal; it is filled by rain and some runoff from a spring in the cliff above it. It is quite a small pond, and it dries up by the end of spring, or sooner if there isn't a lot of snow or rain. The first year we found egg masses, 2020, some of the eggs hatched, but the pond dried up before they could all hatch, and probably way before the ones that did hatch were ready to live life out of the water. The next couple of years the pond dried up way before any of the eggs had a chance to hatch. Now, when I first found eggs there I looked on the internet to find out what kind of eggs they were, and found that they were probably spotted salamanders. Then I looked up what I could find out about spotted salamanders; I read that they are mostly a subterranean species, and that they come out all together one night per year to mate in the same pond where they were hatched, and have a life-span of 12 years. Now, I don't know how accurate any of this information is; the internet can't really be trusted. But I became worried about the spotted salamanders that were mating in the small pond, because for three years in a row, few, if any, eggs were hatching, let alone maturing into adult salamanders. And that was just the years I knew about–I have no idea what was happening in the woods before fall of 2019, though I lived on the edge of the woods, they were a complete mystery to me until we bought them and started exploring. Last year, 2023, on this date I spotted two egg masses in the small pond, when in other years there were around ten or so. I thought that the salamanders were dying out without successfully reproducing. Eventually I did see more egg masses in the small pond, but the small pond got smaller and smaller. We had very little snow that winter, and not much rain in the spring. Eventually I made a decision, which I agonized over: I collected all of the egg masses when the small pond was down to just a muddy spot, and moved them all to the big pond. The big pond is about 50 feet away, and though we call it the big pond it is also not very big. But it is much bigger than the small pond. Also a vernal pool, it too dries up after the spring (or during), but it lasts longer, because it is bigger. We had never seen salamander eggs in the big pond. We had seen frogs' eggs, and tadpoles, but never salamander eggs. I didn't know if the big pond was not appropriate for salamanders, or if the eggs would just get eaten there, or if it would be just a bad thing for me to move the eggs somewhere where there were no salamander eggs. But if I left them in the small pond that was no longer a pond they would all die. If I moved them, I thought maybe they had a chance. In the end, I know at least some of the eggs hatched, but the big pond dried up much too soon, so far as I could tell, for them to mature to the point where they could live out of the water. Also, the big pond was full of frog tadpoles–big ones, which were probably happy to dine on any salamander larvae that emerged. I didn't know if I had done the right thing, but even if all of the salamanders got eaten, they weren't any worse off than they would have been in the small pond. 

Now, it's a year later. I have not seen any salamander egg masses in the small pond. But here's what's in the big pond:

Not completely sure these are salamander eggs. Usually the egg masses are a more cohesive, round blob. (If you are afraid of spiders, ignore the one walking on the water in this picture).

This definitely looks like a salamander egg mass, but it's smaller than ones I have seen before (they can be white like this, or clear like the ones above and below). And I can see the individual egg cells, but there don't appear to be anything in them. Unfortunately, my boots leak, so I can't walk out into the pond to get a better look.

We actually spotted these last week, but today was the first day I had a chance to bring my camera out into the woods to get pictures. Since my boots leak, I needed to use the zoom lens, and these pictures were taken as I teetered precariously on a rock on the edge of the pond.

I am still not sure I did the right thing in moving the egg masses last year, I am just trying to do my best to preserve the biodiversity in our woods. But questions remain: are all of those even salamander egg masses? Is the white one unfertilized eggs? Did enough salamanders survive to reproduce in this pond? 

I don't know. Maybe time will tell. But so far, at least, there are no salamander eggs in the small pond this year. I don't think it's because I moved them all to the big pond last year, given that they have a long enough lifespan that there could be/should be salamanders still going to the small pond to mate, unless it has been at least 12 years that the pond has been drying up too soon.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Weevil. I don't know what kind. It was in a bit of a hurry to climb this tree. Since I didn't have my macro lens, because I had taken the camera out to take pictures of the eggs in the pond, this was as close as I could get.

We had a lot of rain on Saturday, so the small pond is bigger than usual, and had flooded over its usual banks. There were lots of water striders on it today:

Winter firefly. Also rushing to climb a tree. 

This evening I was sitting at my computer, writing this blog post, when I heard a noise outside, and thought that raccoons were trying to get into the garbage cans again, so I went outside with my flashlight...

It was not a raccoon. I was happy to see this opossum, especially as it rooted around in the leaf litter on the lawn, hopefully finding ticks to eat, although it was not especially thrilled to see me.

Ferocious

 Today was one of those fun New England days that wavers indecisively between gorgeous and gloomy. We ate our lunch outside on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. A short time later it was overcast. The sun came and went, playing hide and seek behind forbidding clouds, which is the kind of weather that is frustrating for an insect photographer. But ultimately, it was the wind that curtailed my walk.

The air was perfectly calm while we were having our picnic in the arbor. But within minutes after we finished, ferocious gusts were tossing the tops of the trees. I thought if I gave it some time, it would be calm again, but when I got geared up with my camera and my woods attire, and walked out the back door, I almost turned around and walked back inside. But I stayed outside, looking around the backyard for bugs, and debating with myself whether it was foolhardy to go into the woods. We don't walk in the woods when there are high winds, and for good reason–nearly every windstorm of any intensity brings down trees or at least branches. It's dangerous to walk in the woods then. But... I really wanted to. But I was alone, which heightens the danger. But... sometimes it's only windy at the top of the hill, where our house is, and if you descend into the valley...

I went for a walk in the woods. But not so long a walk as I wanted, because it was windy in the valley, too, and discretion won out. And, compounding the moral of the story, I was rewarded with some cool bug pictures.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

This is definitely a beetle larva, and I think probably a firefly larva, although I don't think a winter firefly. I was very tempted to try to see if there were light organs underneath, but I decided not to disturb it. I do wonder, though, if I had gone back out after dark and it was still there if I would have seen it glowing. Anyway, I never did figure out which end was the head, and which the tail. And this find was my reward for deciding to go back to the house–I didn't see this on my first walk down that particular trail, and if I had not turned back instead of going on my planned circuit I would not have passed by that tree again, so I would not have seen it.

The small pond is where I found my Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Water strider! My patience and my rain boots paid off, and I finally got a decent shot of a water strider. The lower water level helped, too; it's been about a week since our last rain, so the pond has shrunk a bit, and though I had to wade into the water a little, and wait quite a while for this insect to come close, I finally got my shot.

There were a lot of water striders on the small pond today, and they were acting pretty feisty toward each other. I wasn't sure if that was territorial aggression or something in a more romantic vein...

Is the question answered when I tell you there are two water striders here?

 

The small pond was teeming with life today...

This, however, is life I don't like to see: mosquito larva.

There are a lot of bubbles in the water, some floating to the surface and popping, some clinging to the vegetation. I think it is the plants' respiration that is causing the bubbles:

There's a lot of algae and who knows what in the water, it's kind of gross, but there are lots of things swimming around in there...

Like copepods...

This one has egg masses attached. The two things that look like bunny ears are the egg masses.

I approached the pond with caution today, because I didn't want to scare away the frogs that I thought would be there...

This one hopped into the water when I tried to get closer than this...

... but this one was more cooperative, although it too swam away when I stepped into the water to try to photograph the water striders.

I have been on the lookout for salamander eggs in the pond, and so far have not seen any. I hope within the next couple of weeks they will appear. I also hope that this year we have the right amount of rain to keep the pond full long enough for the eggs to hatch and the salamanders too mature beyond the need to be in the water. That has not happened in the years since we bought the woods.

Okay, what else do I have today...

Twice-stabbed lady beetle. I use to think of these as a harbinger of spring, but I have seen them occasionally in the winter, so I think they may be a bit like winter fireflies–they'll come out any time the weather is mild enough.

The hazelnut flowers are blooming.

This shows the male and female flowers. The catkins, the long, dangling things are the male flowers, which release pollen into the air, and the little, pink pompom is the female flower. They are so small it's hard to find them even when you're looking for them.

The female flower. Obviously, those tendrils catch the airborne pollen.

This was the kind of day the candy striped leaf hoppers like to spend sunning themselves on the beech trees:

I have often wondered if they feed during these sunning sessions, or if they are just basking in the glorious sunlight, but today I noticed that a couple of them had excreted rather large (for their size) amounts of honeydew, the sugary substance that is their waste product after sucking the sugary fluids from trees and leaves.

Then I actually saw each of the insects in this cluster repeatedly shooting out drops of honeydew. I tried to get a picture of that, but...

That's the best I got. It happens very fast, and usually the droplet gets expelled with some force.

I finally found some snow fleas!:

They were on one of the trees where I find them every winter.

 

A pretty, little falcon (or some kind of predatory bird, anyway), zoomed past me to land in a tree. The one moment on my walk when I wished I had my zoom lens instead of my macro lens on the camera.

 There are a lot of dead trees in the woods, and although I am terrible at tree identification, some of them I have come to realize were ash trees. This one in particular has been dead for years, since before we bought the woods, because it was already dead when we first found it, and lately a lot of its bark has been falling off:

Under the bark is the key to how it died: the tracks of emerald ash borer larvae. I spent years fretting about the possibility of emerald ash borers arriving here, and what I didn't know was that they were already here, and had already done their damage.

I saw several winter fireflies today, but this was the only one in a spot where I could photograph it.

I saw a fair few spiders today, but windy days are not conducive to taking pictures of tiny spiders on tiny webs. But I did find one on a very sheltered web between the roots of a tree for Arachnid Appreciation:

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Bowl and doily spider.

One thing I have noticed so far this spring: I have not been seeing spiders in the leaf litter any near as much as I normally do at this time of year. It worries me.