Spring

I took a lot of pictures today.

Starting so early in the spring that it is probably still winter, I go outside almost every day to walk around my yard and see what's there. I am looking for bugs (and not expecting to find any at first), but also looking to see what's changing, what's growing, what's new. The reason I don't spend much time in the yard in the winter is not that it's too cold, but that it's not interesting; nothing changes in the winter, it's all in stasis. It waits, and so I wait, and I get so excited when I start to see signs that spring is coming.

Spring is my favorite season for a number of reasons, which I am not going enumerate. If you love spring, you already know why. I will say that I love the constant changes, though, and the surprises, where something is growing or blooming suddenly where you didn't notice before that something was coming.

I call my daily walks Bug Walks, because I am out there looking for the BBotD, but there's always something else to see. Today I got to see my vernal pool. I know it's probably not what would really be considered a vernal pool, but it's a big puddle we get way in the back of the yard when we get a lot of rain (like the 3 and a bit inches we got yesterday). It'll be gone tomorrow or the next day, but when it's there I can feel like I have a pond on my property. It's not there long enough for frogs to lay eggs in or anything, which is too bad.

I took two bug walks today, because a few hours after my first one the sun came out, which improved photo conditions, and also seems to coax out more bugs. As I mentioned, I took a lot of pictures today - because I saw a lot of bugs. I am not going to share them all, but I'll give you a few. I am not always sure which bugs to share; if I don't share it, and I never see it again to get another pic, no one will see it. But if I share everything, I might not find anything for the next week...

Backyard Bug of the Day is more complicated than you think...

Anyway, here's today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

And here's a different wasp, which I am including because you don't usually get this view of a wasp... and maybe you don't want it...

Now for another picture of yesterday's BBotD. I think they are sawfly larvae, even though they don't do the ninja thing (more on that another day). From these pics you can see that they definitely ARE eating the needles on the bush, and also, which they weren't doing yesterday, the way they kind of pile on each other.

Buds are popping out all over, so it's getting hard to choose every day, but here's some buds - leaves, I think - from a tree I cannot identify:

And now... have I overloaded you yet, because there's a bit more to come - a couple of trees in flower:

I had a very pleasant surprise today when I saw my first toad of the spring! I was very happy to see it - and not just because I almost put my monopod right on top of it. Last year I think I only saw two frogs/toads the entire year, and I was concerned about that, so it was great to see one so early in the year. So here you go, Backyard Amphibian of the Day!

It had some weird, bright green blotches on it, like someone spilled paint on it. Don't know what that's all about.

Okay, here's just a bunch or random bugs, because I have no segue, and I was happy to find so many today (and this isn't even all of them!)...

This one was so, so, so tiny I didn't even see it until I looked through my camera.

And now for the final natural beauty of the day, an arachnid appreciation post. If you don't like spiders, scroll no further...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.