Whoosh

I don't really have anything to say today, other than that there was a surprising variety of insects and spiders in the backyard. It was a tiny bit warmer than yesterday (though painfully windy), but I still didn't expect to see much.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what it is. It sort of looks like a springtail, but way bigger. Which isn't saying much, springtails are tiny. A new species for me, which is always great, and rarer all the time.

Random Bugs:

 This was a surprise find - candy striped leaf hopper. Usually I only see these when it's 60ºF or warmer. And they've been pretty scarce this year anyway.

 Case moth caterpillar. This is the first one of these I have seen this year; usually they are all over the goldenrod plants at this point. This one was on a chair, but it looks like its case was made of goldenrod fluff.

 Tree cricket

Another tree cricket

 Some kind of cocoon

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Jumping spider

 I found this spider under the rain gauge when I emptied it (a little less than 1 3/4 inches of rain yesterday/last night). This is the same species of spider that has lived under the rain gauge in past winters.

Flurry

I knew what the forecast was for today. I even mostly believed it. We were supposed to get rain, starting in the afternoon. I knew I had to get out there before the rain started, but there was one other problem - it was really cold out. I didn't think there was much chance of finding bugs if I went outside when the temperature was in the 30s. But I had to get out there before the rain started. So, I waited until the temperature broke 40ºF, which is still cold, but I have noticed in the winter that if the temperature is above about 40ºF, you can usually find some kind of bug flying around, or basking somewhere, so I figured that would be minimally acceptable for bug hunting. There wouldn't be any bugs out basking, because there was heavy cloud cover, but you do what you can.

And then, just as I was about to go outside, I glanced out the window, camera in hand, and saw this:

Well, no, this is not the view out the window, I took this outside.  I added the arrows because it's a terrible picture, but what the arrows are pointing at are snowflakes. It snowed today. Yes, that was in the forecast. And no, it did not stick, eventually turning to sleet and rain, and then just rain, rain, and more rain. But it's a bit inconvenient for any kind of precipitation to be falling when I want to go out to find bugs! Well, I went out anyway, and kept my camera under my shirt when I wasn't taking pictures (which I only took when I was sheltered from the precipitation by the trees, many of which still have plenty of leaves. Fortunately, that's where most of the bugs were). The interesting thing about today's weather is that it was below freezing overnight, then warmed up to about 41ºF when I was outside, then dropped into the 30s in the late afternoon, and began warming up in the evening. By about 10:30 it was 45ºF. It's pretty unusual for the day's high temperature to come at 10:30 in the evening.

But enough about weather, we're here for the insects! It won't surprise you, I know, that I did not find very many of them. But it may surprise you that I found them at all.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Yes, an ant. I didn't have a lot of choice (and I thought that all of the other bugs had been BBotD already this year, which I now know they were not, but it's too late, I already made the ant BBotD).

 Another one, too.

 I know this is a bad picture, but that is why I am posting it. If you have ever wondered how hard it is to get pictures of insects, note that the ant, which would not sit still, is not in focus, but somehow I managed to catch a raindrop falling in focus.

 Raindrop.

Random Bugs:

 I checked the catalpa tree for bugs today because it's always been the most reliable for late season bugs, mostly because the leaves stay green longer than the other trees. I found the BBotD there, and also a couple of ladybeetles, though this one was the only one low enough for me to photograph.

This cricket was in the same place it was in yesterday.

 Tree cricket

Yet another cricket. Funny that crickets are basically an insect emblem of summer, and yet most of the bugs I found on the day of our first snow were crickets. I even heard a couple singing rather forlornly.

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 If you want to know how tiny this spider was, compare it to the size of the raindrops.

Spring? Fall? Winter?

Once again I wanted to wait until the temperature rose into the 50s to go outside to look for bugs, but it never got there. So, outside in the windy 40s I went.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I thought this was a March fly, but Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America says they are abundant in the spring (which makes sense, given the name), and whatever this is, it's abundant in the fall. Every year around this time I start to see these all over the backyard, usually resting on the remaining leaves of the raspberry plants, or other shrub-sized plants.

I can count the number of insect species I saw today on one hand, and still have fingers leftover for the spiders. Random Bugs:

 Cricket sheltering in tree bark

 Ants. I am not sure the ant on top of the ball (whatever this is) is aware of how not helpful it's being.

I haven't seen any spiders for a while, but today I finally have some for Arachnid Appreciation:
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When I went out to get the mail I found this scenario on the front walk. But grasshopper and spider were obliging enough to stay there while I went inside to get my camera. I suspect they were basking in the warmth of the sun on the stones.

 The spider allowed me to take this picture, but then when I was trying to take a closeup of the grasshopper (which isn't worth posting), apparently the spider decided to make a run for it, and it did - right OVER the grasshopper. Which I think is funny, because if it was afraid of me, the obvious choice would appear to be to run in the direction it was already facing, away from me, but instead it turned around and ran right in front of me. Sadly, I didn't react fast enough to get a picture. The grasshopper didn't react at all.

 I think this is a six-spotted orb weaver.

Chilly and Windy

Today I felt like I should wait for the temperature to rise into the 50s before going out to look for bugs, which didn't happen until about 1:00 in the afternoon. I did not hear crickets singing when I went out, and I don't think it was just a matter of not being able to hear them over the roaring wind. I did hear them eventually, faintly and forlornly in the backyard, and with gusto in the front by the rocks, where it is warmer.

That wind, though. I actually went inside to get my handheld anemometer to see how forceful the wind was - and of course when I came out it died down. It came back though. I was a little disappointed that for the most part the readings I got were only around 2 mph, but I did get some gusts in the 9s, and one of 10.4 mph. I think if I was about 30 feet taller I would have gotten higher readings - the trees were thrashing about dramatically, and I think I was pretty sheltered on the ground.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I was not able to identify this caterpillar, but it most resembles some of the tiger moth caterpillars in the book.

Random Bugs:

 Still a few grasshoppers hopping around in the rock garden.

 Crane fly on the same tree trunk where I saw the pair of crane flies yesterday

 

 Cricket

 Different cricket on the same tree trunk

 This was the most shocking backyard find of the day. When I keep saying that there aren't any flowers blooming anymore I forget that there are still some of these pink flowers in bloom. I haven't seen any insects on them in quite a while, though. I was certainly not expecting to see a hoverfly today.

Weather or Not

You may be thinking that the lack of blog posts over the weekend is because I was away again, but I wasn't. I didn't post on Friday and Saturday nights for a very welcome reason - my bug walks were rained out both days! Huzzah! Rain! We got about 1 1/2 inches of rain (2 1/4 of that on Friday, including late into the night). In the interest of full disclosure I should probably mention that on both days I could  have done a bug walk, because it didn't rain until mid-afternoon, but I still don't believe weather forecasts that say it's going to rain, so I didn't feel any sense of urgency, and on both days it started raining before I had a chance to get outside. I do have other things to do with my time. Then yesterday we were out all day, and while I could have gotten up an hour or so earlier in order to do a bug walk before we left, it was so cold there was no point (Last Monday the high temperature was in the 80s. Yesterday it was in the 50s. I'm having weather shock). There would have been no bugs to find. On all three evenings there were a few bugs that came to the porch light, but none of them wanted to be photographed. So... no bug pictures, no blogs.

Today was sunny, and just made it into the 60s, so I did do a bug walk. I knew as soon as I walked out the back door that there must be some bugs around, because I could hear the crickets–not as many as you'd hear on a hot day, but they were out there singing. It was not a really buggy day, but I did find a few.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I could try to bamboozle you with scientific terms, and tell you this is a bug from the order Blattodea, family Blattidae, genus parcoblatta, but I would just be avoiding saying that this is a cockroach. Before you get all freaked out, I would point out again that not all cockroaches are home invaders. Most of them live outside and work at decomposing dead plant matter, therefore helping nature. This is a wood cockroach, as in, lives in the woods. Or in this case, right next to the woods - I found it in my yard, under a piece of wood. There were several of them that scattered when I picked up the wood. It's wingless, which means it's a female.

 They burrowed into the moss with amazing speed. Because they like moss. Not your kitchen.

 This one had some kind of milky substance on its back end.

 

Random Bugs:

 When I went outside, as I mentioned, I heard crickets, but hearing bugs and finding them is not the same thing. Fortunately, I soon found some grasshoppers. They were not really interested in having their picture taken, but I did get this one.

There were a few ladybeetles around, too:

 

 Also an ant here.

 And I found another striped garden caterpillar.

 

 A pair of crane flies

 

 I didn't notice it when I was taking the picture, but there are a bunch of white bristles on the tree trunk - see at the top of the picture. They look like they are from a white hickory tussock moth caterpillar, but I don't know.

 Beetle

 Assassin Bug

 Sawfly, or some other kind of wasp