Brrr!

It was too cold for bugs today–it started flurrying while I was out on my bug walk–but I am stubborn and optimistic so I looked for them anyway, even though it was too cold for ME.

Here's what I found:

 Winter fireflies huddling together in a crevice

 Twice stabbed lady beetle. I have been wondering what these are eating lately, because I have seen quite a number of them, but I have only seen two aphids, which is what they eat.

The most interesting thing I found today was not insects, but something for Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Two different species of spiders on the same twig!

It's the Small Things

To a certain extent I feel like there is a dreary sameness to my bug searches lately; it's always the same bugs, and since spring hasn't really progressed at all, there's never anything new. But every once in a while I find something that is not the usual, and it buoys me up for the rest of the walk. It doesn't even have to be something amazing or even a new species, it just has to be something that I haven't been seeing every day.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Can you find it? The only reason I saw it was because I saw it fly over to the rock and land on it. And even then I couldn't figure out where it landed until it flew up and landed again.

Moth. That's the first moth I have seen in quite a while.

There were very few other bugs around today. After all those flies I saw yesterday, there were only a couple today. There were fewer winter fireflies. There were even fewer ants eating the tree sap, though as you will see in a moment, there were still some to be found. It was only a couple degrees colder today than the last couple of days, but it was really cloudy by afternoon when I went out looking for bugs.

 Birch catkin bug on a pine sapling

 There were still some ants around.

Arachnid Appreciation;
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

There was no snake for the last couple of days, even though it was warmer the last two, but it was back today:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 I took these with the telephoto lens, not the macro lens, so I wasn't really that close.

 I took an unintentional self-portrait–I am reflected in the snake's eye.

SPRING! SPRING? SPRING!

I think we humans like to arrange things, to categorize them, to measure and regulate them, and so when our planet reaches a certain point relative to other celestial bodies spinning around in the universe, we give a name to that day, the First Day of Spring, and for some reason I think a part of us believes that on that day, the world is supposed to suddenly begin to behave in a certain way. The weather should suddenly be mild and pleasant, and things should start blooming, and leaves should come out on the trees, and it should just STOP being winter (although, I almost think that spring is the only season we really want to change like that. We don't seem to mind the others being gradual. Or maybe it's just me). That's not what happens, of course, and yet, the weather can and did make a sudden turn this week. We went from cold and (a little) snowy to suddenly "spring-like" weather from one day to the next. It did not, however, happen on the day of the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, even though our planet did reach that relative point in the universe one day earlier this week. It waited a couple of days. And it took a couple of days for this to happen:

 The crocus finally fully bloomed! Huzzah! I say THE crocus, because though there are others sprouting in the backyard, none of them are even close to blooming. Now it feels like spring. Sort of.

 Maple tree gearing up to bloom soon...

The thing that made today feel most like spring is...

 Sap.

 

 Lots of sap. That first tree is a cedar, this one I don't know, and the black birches are dripping sap all over the place (I don't know why they do it, but they do it every spring). The ants are definitely loving it.

 It's dripping out of the hole on this tree. This tree has quite a few woodpecker holes, and they are all full of sap and surrounded by ants.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. I couldn't find it in my books.

 There were a lot of ants around today, mostly on the sappy trees, but elsewhere, too.

And A LOT of flies. Multiple species. Everywhere:

 

 And a couple of birch catkin bugs. I haven't seen any of those lately, since it turned cold, but with our recent warm-up of the last two days, I guess they have come out again.

 

 A chrysalis on the side of the house.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 Jumping spider on the side of the house

 It's hard to tell, but it looks like it has caught something as prey, and almost looks like maybe it's another spider that it is eating.

Out of Focus

We were supposed to get about a foot of snow over the last two days. We didn't. We got about an inch, maybe, and today was so warm that by the end of the day we had less snow on the ground than we did before this latest "storm". I wasn't going to do a bug walk, though, because it was cold enough to snow for the last couple of days, and it looked cold out (a ridiculous thought), so I figured it was just like it has been, but then I looked at my weather station and saw that it was almost 50ºF, so out I went.

It was pretty disappointing, really. There wasn't much to see other than a lot of winter fireflies, and a lot of little things flitting through the air. And I took horrible pictures, so horrible that I couldn't believe my own ineptitude when I looked at them.

And then later, there was this:

 

 Lovely ichneumon wasp of some kind attracted to the porch light, but it would not sit still for a picture!

So, here's the best of what I got on my bug walk:

 Tiny fly

Another species of fly

At first glance I didn't think there were any winter fireflies on their favorite tree, but I looked closer and realized that there were plenty. It's funny how hard it is to see them sometimes, because they don't really blend in that much.

 Size variation

Insects have NO respect for personal space.

 The woodpecker holes in the trees were popular today; the sap must be flowing:

 

 It wasn't just ants enjoying them.

I assume this is an egg case that has hatched its inhabitants. They must have been tiny, this thing was about an eighth of an inch long.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 Six-spotted orb weaver. The first one I have seen this spring.

Vernal

Happy Vernal Equinox!

That being said, it wasn't very vernal outside today. But now it is spring by two measures, astronomy (the vernal equinox) and meteorology (March 1st, basically for record keeping purposes).

The bugs obviously thought so, too. There were very few to be found (and no snakes. It was cloudy, and they definitely need some apricity when it's cold).

 Midge, with fabulous antennae

 Snow fleas