Morning Sunshine

 A couple of days ago I went for a walk in the morning with my macro lens on the camera, and saw hardly any bugs, and wished I had my other lens on the camera because it was a perfect time to take pictures of the woods in springtime. Today I went out with my other lens on the camera to take pictures of the woods in springtime, and the weather wasn't quite right for it, but I saw a million cool bugs.

I just can't win...

Anyway, I went out this evening, so I am getting a very late start on this, so I am just going to post the pictures as I took them. Conveniently, the first bug I got pictures of is Backyard Bug of the Day:

I don't know what kind of butterfly this is.

Taking flight

Other Bugs:

Red admiral butterfly

 

  More of those weird fungus things have appeared:

They might be a kind of slime mold. Notice the beetles on it.

This was a bit high up on the tree, and, of course, I had the wrong lens to get close-ups of the beetles anyway.

 

I found another one on a different tree, elsewhere in the woods, but this one didn't have any beetles.

Stonefly

Oh, I forgot about these. Okay, Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day #2:

I am pretty sure these are caddisflies. I found several of them on plants next to the stream, both on skunk cabbage and false hellebore. The plants were clustered together right on the edge of the stream. I wonder if they've just recently eclosed, and again I wonder if I saw them when they were larvae.

Hoverfly

Leaf footed bug. Or squash bug. Or both, I think squash bugs are a species of leaf footed bugs. I've never really been clear on that. 

Crane fly

Ant pollinating false hellebore

Crane fly

My first damselfy of the year! Yeah, I didn't get close enough to get a better picture of this one.

I also saw my first dragonfly of the year today, but not while I had my camera.

Winter firefly

Beetle

I think this is an ichneumon moth of some kind.

What a lovely pair:

I don't know what this is, but it looks like some kind of beetle. If I'd been able to get a better picture it would probably be a Co-Bug of the Day.

Six spotted tiger beetle. This is the closest I could get. I had to walk through pricker bushes to get this shot, and then the thing flew away before I could get a closer one. It sometimes amazes me to see that I have at times gotten really close shots with my macro lens of these beetles, because most of the time I can't get within five feet of one.

Sorry, I am compelled to post pictures of frogs. I have never seen so many frogs in the stream and big pond in spring as this year. I wonder if the incredibly wet winter and early spring are why there are so many.

 

When I stepped up to the edge of the stream this one dove in the water and buried itself in the silty streambed, but it didn't quite get completely covered up.

And tadpoles!

I found a frog on the edge of the bathtub!

I guess the woods did photograph pretty well... (it did get cloudy eventually):

Poison ivy

I don't know if I've mentioned that the trees in the woods produced massive amounts of seeds this past autumn, but the result is now that the forest floor is covered with seedlings.

There's at least three species here, a maple, an oak, and an I-don't-know-what-that-is.

Soooo many seedlings. A fierce competition has begun: a fight for water, sunlight, room to grow... At best one of these will someday be a tree.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I think this crab spider was hoping that bug would move closer, and I would move farther away.

 

I walked through a patch of ferns where just about every plant had a web like this nestled between its fronds:

Backyard Reptile of the Day:

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Yes, it's a snake. It's always snakes.

Garter snake. A pretty large one, as garter snakes go.

It never moved while I was there looking at if for several minutes. It didn't slither away, or move its head like it was scenting the air, sensing prey. It just laid there.

If you're ever reading a description of a snake that says it has keeled scales, this is what they are talking about. If you look at the individual scales, see how it looks like the keel on the bottom of a boat? Keeled scale.

Well, it it did move its tongue. Eventually.

If I was the kind of person who picks up snakes–and I am most emphatically NOT–I could easily have picked this one up. It looks a bit weird, kind of flat. The head looks weird. Not sure what to make of this.