How the Wild Works

As I write this, at about 12:30 in the morning, it is 61ºF and raining outside. If this was a normal December, we would be getting some respectable snow coverage right now, but this is not a normal December. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. We need rain, well, precipitation, anyway, and I don't have a problem with not being cold. I have come to realize over the last few years that I actually like winter, even if I complain about it at times, but I don't need a lot of it to satisfy my seasonal requirements. If we get to the end of January with all rain and no snow, I will be whining about it. But all I am saying is that this is kind of weird.

I know I said yesterday that I was probably done with blogging for the year, but the caveat was that I would if I found anything worth blogging about. I have a very low threshold for what is worth blogging about. So, though I didn't see a lot of bugs today, and the ones I did see were the same-old, same-old, I am blogging anyway. You'll only find out why if you are not afraid of spiders, though.

As for bugs... and anything else in the wild world, I have come to realize that the way nature works is basically if there is something to eat, something will be there to eat it. So, there are a few leaves left, which means there are a few leaf hoppers left. There is obviously something out there for the winter crane flies and the springtails, who love this damp weather, so they are here to eat it. There are fewer bugs this time of year not just because it's usually cold, but because there's less to eat - there are not many leaves left. But if you dug around in the leaf litter, you'd probably find a bunch of things there that like to eat dead leaves. So, there are still a few bugs around, and that means there are still things around that eat them. And that means there are still spiders.

No Backyard Bug of the Day today, but here's some pictures:

 Finally! A leaf hopper! All these days in the 60s I haven't seen them. The high in the afternoon today was only in the 50s, I think, but here's a hopper. This is the one mountain laurel we planted that survived, and since mountain laurels don't lose their leaves in winter, this plant has been where I find hoppers now.

 There is a vine in various places in the yard that still has its leaves, too. Most of them are changing color now, but some are still green. Here's a couple of springtails on that vine.

 Springtails were EVERYWHERE today.

So, about the spiders. Before we get to the actual spiders, which I will place at the end as usual, I would like to point out that days like today, kind of foggy and misty, are great for finding spiderwebs, because the tiny droplets of water make them stand out. A few different kinds of webs today:

 I don't even know for sure if this is a spider web, or if some other silk-producing critter made this. It's on a brick in the arbor, kind of a mat of silk.

Now for the spiders that were on those webs - Arachnid Appreciation:
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 From the first web above.

 From the second web above, the orb weaver web.

I don't have a picture for the third one (if I did, I wouldn't be unsure if it was a spider web, would I?).

Hello? Bugs?

It's been a puzzling few days in the backyard. The conundrum that confounds me is, where are all the bugs? Since Thursday the daytime highs have been in the low 60s, and the nighttime lows stay in the 40s or 50s. It's been beautiful. Perfect weather for bugs who were hunkered down for the winter to come out and enjoy the balmy December, but nope, they didn't. Friday I did a bug walk, and saw one winter crane fly. Saturday I didn't do a bug walk, because I didn't have time, but I did do some work out in the backyard, and didn't see any bugs. Today I did a bug walk, and I saw two insects (well, two live insects - I also saw a dead ant) and one spider. That's it. Now, today was really overcast, and the last two days have been more cloudy than sunny, and bugs do seem to prefer sunny weather, but it was still a huge surprise to me that I didn't see more bugs the last couple of days. I know that a lot of bugs die at the end of autumn, maybe not so much from the cold, as from having reached the end of their lifespan. But in the past, even after a long cold spell, if the weather warms up even into the 40s I have seen bugs. So to not be seeing them when it's 60 is strange.

Here's one of the two bugs I saw today:

 Winter crane fly. The other one was a springtail, and it sprang away before I could get a picture of it.

Oh, I just remembered that I saw a moth on the front porch the other night, one that was NOT one of those winter moths that have been around a lot lately, but I didn't get a picture of it. So, there was that bug.

Speaking of bugs... All of the calendars are done, and if you can stand a plug for them, you can get them HERE for Bugs!, HERE for Bug Faces, HERE for Caterpillars, HERE for Beetles, HERE for Intriguing Insects, HERE for Lovely Lepidoptera, which is butterflies and moths, but I am sure you knew that, HERE for Buzzz, which is bees and wasps, and lastly, HERE for Spiders.

I think this may well be the last blog post of the year. I'll keep doing bug walks for a couple more days (the next few are supposed to be in the 60s again, and then in the 50s, and then the 40s...), but I don't expect to find anything interesting. There's always a chance of interesting birds or other fauna, but for now, I think it will be 2016 before I have anything to post about again. So, if I don't see you... Happy New Year!

And speaking of spiders... Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I didn't get any good pictures of this spider, so I will make up for it by giving you a lot of them. I found it because I broke off a dead branch that was hanging low over a path, and the spider was on the part of the branch I left behind, but when I broke it off, it came dangling down on a thread. It climbed back up to the branch, which is where it is in these pictures.

 I love when spiders try to pretend they are just part of the branch by straightening their legs like this. Honestly, if I didn't know it was there, I wouldn't see it, this trick works so well.

 Trailing that anchor thread.

Spring in December

Oops! I almost forgot to write a blog today. I have gotten out of the habit, since I haven't seen anything all week except for a few winter crane flies. Some days I didn't see any bugs at all, even though it wasn't all that cold out. But today it was like the beginning of spring instead of the beginning of winter - 60ºF. I wore shorts when I went out for my bug walk. I didn't find a whole lot of bugs - not that I could take pictures of, anyway, because mostly they were zooming past me in the air - but they were out there, enjoying the spring weather in December. I happened to see a picture I took two years ago today, and it was snowing that day, which is more Decembery. But I am enjoying this at the moment.

And speaking of feeling like spring, this popped up in the backyard:

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This shouldn't be Backyard Bug of the Day, because it was Backyard Co-Bug of the Day last month, but I was already loading the picture when I realized that, so it gets its own day now. These tiny hoppers are nearly impossible to photograph, so I am taking advantage of the lucky break to post it again.

The ants were at work again today:

There are a variety of berries and fruits in the backyard now. Very colorful and pretty. The birds don't seem very interested in them, though.

 Bonus points if you can find the ant in this picture. I swear, I can't NOT take pictures of bugs.

I have completed two of my bug calendars so far. Except one of them is actually a spider calendar. You can find them HERE for bees and wasps and HERE for spiders. There are more to come, butterflies and moths, caterpillars, and at least one general bugs calendar, if not two. 

Arachnid Appreciation:
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A surprise to find an orb weaver today. This is a tiny one.

Out of Reach

Insect macrophotography is fascinating and educational, and extremely rewarding at times, but it can also be terribly frustrating. After all, there are days when I take 300-600 pictures, and of those hundreds of pictures, there's only a couple that are really good. A lot of them are okay. A huge majority are awful, and a lot of potentially great pictures never get taken at all, because the bug flies away at the last second, while my finger is pressing down on the shutter button. Or before I get it in focus. Anyway, it can be maddening.

And then there's today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't even know why I was looking so high up this tree trunk, but about 8 or 9 feet up I saw this bug scurrying around, and it came to rest in a groove of the bark. I can't tell what it is. At first it looked like a winter firefly, which would be a normal thing to find there, but as it was moving, and I got looks at it from different angles, it didn't look like that. It didn't look like a moth either.

What's that you say? You can't even see it?

 There it is. (In case you haven't noticed, I recently discovered that I can make circles on things in pictures). So, obviously I wanted a better picture, but I am only 5' 4 1/4" tall. I can generally take okay picture of things about six feet up, but 8 or 9 feet is too much. So I tried (and tried and tried) to get a picture by putting the camera on timer and lifting the camera up on the monopod, but as you might guess, getting things in focus that way is hard. Actually, getting them in the picture at all that way is hard - I am not sure the bug is even in any of the shots I got, and they are so blurry I can't tell anyway. It is also hard to hold the camera steady like that, but it doesn't really matter if your subject isn't in focus anyway. Or in the shot at all.

So...

 Here's the above picture zoomed in. Even looking at this I have no idea what it is, but it's not a winter firefly or a moth.

It was a nice day today, and I expected to see more than just winter crane flies, and I did, but not much:

 I saw some ants working on their formicary. For some reason that surprised me - I have been seeing ants on occasion, but I was surprised to see them working, in this case bringing bits of dirt up out of the hole. I don't know why that surprised me - obviously, the work needs to be done, and the ground is not frozen - in fact, it is warmer underground than above ground this time of year. So the ants would be active, and if they are active, it makes sense for them to be working on the place.

 It was even warm enough for a candy striped leaf hopper. To think that four years ago I had no idea these even existed, and now I know they are all around me. And it's not like I never spent any time outside before then, I spent a LOT of time outside. I just wasn't looking at the tiny things around me.

 Today was definitely the day for things out of my reach. There's a moth flying around up there... I found out that those moths I have been seeing on the front porch (and flying around the backyard) are Winter Moths. And they are an invasive species, and can totally defoliate - and kill - trees. That is, the caterpillars do. During the time of year when there are leaves. So I am kind of bummed about this. I hate to think of bugs being bad.

 Here's a couple of gnats propagating the species. It seems optimistic at this time of year, but I know nothing about their life cycle. For all I know, any eggs laid today will be grandparents by this time next week, and the days for the next week are looking pretty promising.

Here's a little action sequence for you:

 A gross action sequence. See that white blur on the bug's back?

 Okay, see it now? Guess what that is?

 I watched in amazement as this bug did what it was doing. I expected it to shoot that thing out the back, but it curled its body up and flung it over its head!

That's it - the white thing to the right of the bug. I am sure you are wondering why I photographed this process, and the answer is, how could I not? The better question is, how could I be such a dope and incompetent photographer that I didn't get the shot as it flung it? I am ashamed of myself.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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I may be 90% not afraid of spiders, but even I know that the spider living among the shoes in the hall closet has to go. It looks terrible, linty and kind of dehydrated, but it was feisty. It also wouldn't post nicely for pictures. Anyway, it no longer lives among shoes, so that has to be an improvement in its quality of life, even if it is winter(ish) now.

Aaw.

I have been on a trip down bug memory lane, going through files to choose the pictures for the 2016 calendars. Because I am going backward from the most recent ones, I am going from days when there were very few bugs to days where there were more. I am only to September, so still not in the really good part of bug season, but I am seeing some nice bugs. And lots of sunshine.

Today there was sunshine, but also wind. It was the same temperature as yesterday, but much colder. I saw a lot of winter crane flies, including a few swarms, but the swarms all stayed really low to the ground. I don't know if that was because of the wind, or for some other reason.

I don't have pictures of winter crane fly swarms for you today. In fact, I have only one picture, and again it is something I did not expect to see:

Proof that babies of anything are cute. Baby aphids (I think). Not something I have seen in months, and certainly not something I expected to see today, even without this summer having such a scarcity of aphids. After all, it's December now, which means meteorological winter.

Shapes in the Fog

I joke around about how impressed you should be that I am able to find tiny insects that blend in with their surrounding, because tiny things are hard enough to see, right? Well, can you see the deer in this picture?

 That would be deer as in plural. There are three of them. I don't know why I am asking, I know you can't see them, because I can't see them and I know where they are.

 Here. I should note that none of their heads are visible here. In fact, the one on the far left - that's its rump. The only reason I noticed there were deer out there today is because I saw them when they moved. Animals that big, and I couldn't even see them until they moved.

 Here's a different angle. Can you see them now? (There are only two in this shot).

 How about now?

As you can see from the above pictures, it was not a beautiful day in the backyard. It wasn't as cold as it has been, and so I discovered that my current threshold of discomfort is somewhere around 45ºF. Colder than that, and I am cold. Warmer than that and I am okay. Anyway, I didn't get to do a full bug walk, because once again it started to rain while I was out there, but most of the time it was just foggy and a bit misty.

You can probably guess that I didn't see a lot of bugs. I found a cocoon:

And a whatever this is:

 It sort of looks like a praying mantis egg case, but sort of not.

The tiny mushrooms that I found growing on a tree a while back are thriving in our recent wet weather:

 Which brings us to the only kind of bug I got pictures of today:

Can you find the springtail in this picture?

 How about the two in this picture?

 Okay, this one is more obvious.

 And this one.

I don't remember if I mentioned the other day that there was a lot of spider silk around the yard - not full webs, but threads going from plant to plant. Well, today, because it was misty, the web threads were covered with beads of water, which made them easier to see. And very pretty:

 All over the branches of trees I was these threads.

 The one real web I found.

So, I was wondering why there were threads all over, and how long they have been there. And if the spiders that built them were still around. Then, I found one. Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This spider dropped down in front of my face on a thread. If it was trying to ambush me, it missed. I took its thread and transferred it to this branch. You can barely see it, it's just a blur in the background, but there is a springtail on the branch, too.