Spring Sign

Robins are commonly regarded as harbingers of spring, but they are not really the migrators that everyone thinks they are. Some of them do go south for the winter, but some of them stick around, if they can find food. During the buggier months of the year they are insectivorious, but in the winter they will eat fruit. I saw robins quite a few times over the winter, so the one I saw in front of my house today did not inspire me with thoughts of spring. I was interested, though, to see that it had something in its beak when it hopped out of my rock garden onto the front walk. I couldn't see it very well, but I assume it had found an insect. Underneath the creeping myrtle plants, the rock garden is teeming with insect life (albeit mostly dormant at the moment). I wonder if the robin caught something that was active, or if it found something that was still in its winter snooze.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Lady beetle. Today was sunny and mild, enough to draw this beetle out of its winter sheltering place.

There were even more candy striped leaf hoppers out today:

And quite a lot of winter fireflies:

 Midge. Female; the males have huge, feathery antennae.

I found another community of snow fleas in a different part of the backyard, on another rock, which seems to be their favored hangout spots. Several years ago I used to find them on tree trunks, but now it's always rocks. Never snow, oddly...

 It's interesting that this year I am finding so many snow fleas, when we've had very little snow.

 These little things are still crawling around in that patch of moss.

 Another kind of springtail.

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

Spider crawling around in the leaf litter in the rock garden

Back in the Backyard

Hello again, Bug Fans. I am sorry for the lack of posts for the last few weeks. It was not because there were no bugs in my backyard, it was because I was not in my backyard. I had to go away unexpectedly, so I missed whatever was going on out there, although I would guess for the most part it was more or less what has been going on for the last couple of months. After all, most of what I saw today when I did my bug walk were the same things I have been seeing. However, despite the snow on the ground (we had our biggest snowfall of the season while I was away, enough that though the temperature has been above freezing ever since, the snow is still around), I found something unexpected today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I usually see one of these beetles on the stone steps out front early in the spring, so this one was right on time.

Also on the front steps, a lot of snow fleas:

 For some time they have been out on one particular stone; today they had expanded their territory to another stone as well, and there were more than there have been.

It was sunny for most of the day, and got close to 50ºF, so there were a few candy striped leaf hoppers out:

 Can you see both of them in this shot?

 Here's the second one.

I saw this winter firefly on the ground near the base of a tree. I usually see them on tree trunks, but I think they lay their eggs on the ground, so maybe that's what this one was down there for:

Looking Closer

Today's life lesson from the backyard is to look more closely, because things might not be what they seem. Sometimes when I am doing my bug walk, I check to see what bugs are around, even if I don't take their pictures, or post them. I just want to know what's out there, but as I have mentioned before, I don't want to post pictures of the same things every day. So, I check the two rocks where the snow fleas congregate to see if the are there every day, but I don't post pictures of them every day. Today there weren't any on the rock on the front walk, and there were some, but not many, on their other favorite rock. I didn't take pictures of them on the rock, I just looked at them, and then I happened to spot something else:

 I thought that brown thing was a pine needle, but I decided to look closer. I often think something is nothing much, and then decide to look closer and it is really something very interesting, and that compels me to keep doing it.

And that is how I found today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 So, I looked closer, and I thought it was a tiny caterpillar. Not something I used to expect in February, but I have gotten past having expectations like that, so I figured that the warmer weather (it was almost 50ºF today) must have woken up the tiny caterpillar and it went on walkabout.

 Looking even closer, I thought there was something weird about its head, but it was really small, and hard to see well, so I just figured I wasn't seeing it well. And I walked away, looking for more bugs.

For some reason, though, I went back to look at it again, and this time I got a better look a its head:

 That's when I realized it was not a caterpillar, but a beetle larva. And it looked like it had something in its mouth (caught in its mandibles might be a more accurate description. Or not. I am still no expert on insect anatomy). I am sure it goes without saying that I have no idea what kind of beetle this is.

 What is it that is all over this rock lately? Snow fleas! And what is my Law of Nature? If there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it. And so, all of those snow fleas wandering around on this rock are prey for a beetle larva. Also, if you look at its body, near the head end you can see kind of dark shadowyness inside? I realized from flipping back and forth between pictures that that is probably the snow fleas it has eaten; it's kind of translucent so having eaten something darkly colored, what it has eaten is visible through its body.

 

 A look at the beetle face minus prey.

Oh, and did someone say something about mandibles?

 I saw it eating at least three snow fleas.

 That one got away...

Aside from the usual insects, I saw this crawling on the side of the house:

Western conifer seed bug. I don't know if it's the same one I released outside the other day. It could be, it could not be. It might just have woken from its winter stupor because of the warm weather and ventured out.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee

I only put birdseed in my bird feeder when it snows. I know there are plenty of things for the birds to eat in my backyard otherwise–I see them feeding on the ground, in the trees, leftover flower seeds–but since a lot of stuff is covered when it snows, I feed them then. Today when I was outside looking for bugs, and standing near the feeder, this chickadee flew to a tree near me and called to me: "Chick-a-dee-dee-dee":

I like to think it was saying, "Thank you for the bird seed!" but I suspect it was saying, "Get away, I want to eat now!"

And that's all for today.

Snow, Snow Flowers, and Snow Insects

We had a little bit of snow today, so now we have...

 Snow fleas and snow. But not snow fleas ON snow. I have seen that before, but never in my backyard. For some reason the snow fleas in my backyard stick to rocks and trees. There were more of them today than I have even seen in my backyard before.

The temperature was in the low 40s(F), so a bit above freezing.

 The snow fleas in my backyard have two hangouts this year, one rock on the front stairs, and one in the woods.

 

Both spots had greater numbers of snow fleas today than they have had other days this winter. This is the rock out front...

 ... and this is the one in the woods:

 This one has some black splotches on it that I think are some kind of lichen. You'll have to look closely to see which black specks are which, lichen or snow fleas. A reminder, by the way, that snow fleas are not fleas, they are a species of springtail. They won't bite you or harm you in any way.

 

 That rock also had another species of springtail. This one is much bigger, but still a tiny insect.

And, for good measure, one more species of springtail, actually on snow, but not a snow flea. I didn't get closer to this one, it was very springy.

The snowdrops survived being buried in snow and sleet yesterday:

There were a few little things flying around today, too, but I didn't get a close enough look at them to see what they were.

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

Winter In A Flower Pot

My bug walk this afternoon was not noteworthy, and featured very few insects. Those few that I saw were the same things I see any day I go out looking for bugs these days, which is not surprising. It's also not very interesting. I got one good picture of a snow flea:

 

 I'm posting this because all of the other snow flea pictures I have posted lately were horrible. I am not going to bother with the other pictures from my bug walk, and am just going to go on to the more interesting insect encounter of the day...

I was sitting on the couch this evening, working on my computer, when I heard a loud buzzing behind me. I looked and saw a largish insect bopping around the lights on the ceiling. I watched it until it landed on the bookshelf:

 Western conifer seed bug. They like to come inside the house for the winter, where it's nice and warm. It is a Hemiptera, or true bug, and you can see its proboscis, the tube through which it feeds.

 

 I prefer for them to spend the winter outside. I used to think if I found bugs inside in the winter and moved them outside that they would freeze to death, but now I am pretty sure they just find somewhere to hunker down until spring, and they are better off hibernating or going into diapause than starving inside my house where they won't find their natural food source. So, I caught the bug and brought it out onto the porch, where I put it in a flower pot that is out there. The flower pot has some dried leaves in it, and immediately the bug crawled under one. I moved the leaf to try to get a picture of it, and the bug started crawling toward another hiding spot...

To be continued in Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

As I continued trying to take pictures of it I realized that there was something else that had been sheltering under that leaf. Can you see it?

 The seed bug walked right over the spider.

 I have mentioned before that there are many insects (and other animals) that shelter in leaf litter over the winter. I didn't realize that the handful of leaves in a flower pot was enough leaf litter for them. I did recover the spider with a leaf after I took the pictures. The seed bug chose a different leaf to shelter under.

Back To My Usual Tricks

You know what I haven't much lately? Post a Backyard Bug of the Day. Because I see the same bugs every day, and have been seeing those same bugs for a couple of months, I haven't really had a good bug to choose for BBotD. The point of that is to have a different bug every day. Granted, I rarely have the opportunity to post something really new anymore, but I do still try to choose a particular species only once a year. But now that I am blogging in the winter, I am not really sure where a year begins and ends, bug-wise? Do I go by calendar year? Seasons? I don't know. But there are only a handful of species that I see nowadays, so I haven't made anything BBotD for a while.

But today I have one for you. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of plant bug. Definitely not what I have been seeing lately.

It turns out that I didn't have to wait very long for the snow drops to bloom:

Today started out rainy, but the sun came out, and it was a mild day, so a good day for winter fireflies to bask on their favorite tree:

 I have been checking this rock lately for snow fleas, because I found them there last year, and finally today they were there.

 Only one candy striped leaf hopper came out today.

 Today was just the kind of weather for bugs who like dampness and don't like the cold, like this sow bug.

I've been on the lookout for winter ants with the warmer weather this week, and finally found one.

The cold is coming back tomorrow. In fact, I can hear it coming now, carried in by a gale.