Board Meeting

 I haven't been spending much time outside lately. We're not having a polar vortex, or anything like that, but January is the coldest month of the year here, and it's been a little colder than normal, which means that it has been a while since the temperature has been above freezing. Therefore, there's not much point in going out looking for bugs. Yesterday, though we had a bit of a thaw, and the rain washed away almost all of the little snow we had. I couldn't go out looking for bugs then, because it was raining and I was out most of the day, but today, to my surprise and contrary to the weather forecast (of course), it hit 40ºF, so I figured I should go see if there were any bugs around.

I have been curious, you see, in my I'm-pretending-to-be-scientific-even-though-I-am-not-a-scientist way, to see what would be out there one a warmer day after an extended freeze. So, we had the freeze, and now two warmer (let's not kid ourselves - it was not WARM, just warmER) days. There were some springtails and some sort of fly on the porch last night, so I had hopes for today. In other winters, when I was not actively surveying the bug landscape in the backyard, I have noticed that when the temperature gets into the 40s, no matter the point in winter, there are usually bugs to be seen flying around the backyard. Well, nobody was flying today. But there was life.

The caterpillar in the package bin, for instance, has shifted spots again, and I am guessing is hiding under the dried leaves, because I couldn't see it. I guess it was warm enough yesterday and today for it to thaw out.

And of course I checked up on the cricket under the board:

 I never actually saw it during the deep freeze, because the times I tried to look either the board was frozen to the ground or there was ice in the little hollow where the cricket lives (which seems smaller now... don't know why...), but today when I flipped the board it moved, so it's not in diapause right now.

The cricket was not alone, though:

I didn't get a good shot of this, or even a good look, but it's definitely an arthropod of some kind.

Then there were these:

 Some kind of springtail, maybe?

Everything else under there was an arachnid, so we'll get to them in a moment. But first, the bugs in the house:

 Here's a bit of trivia for you - computer bugs are called computer bugs because early in the development of computers there was once a malfunction cause by a moth that flew into a computer and shorted something out. Computers were much bigger back then (and apparently had openings that moths could fly into). This ladybug, however, did not short out my laptop.

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 The surprise of the day was a spider active under the cricket's board.

 I found a couple of these, too - I think they are mites.

 And I am not sure if this is a spider or a baby daddy-long-legs.

But there were two of them. And this one seems to be very obtuse for a predator.

I checked up on Rain Gauge Spider, too, when I emptied the rain gauge. She's still inside her silk tent, but I know she's alive because she's moved since the last time I checked on her.

We're going back down to freezing again tomorrow. This wasn't the most glorious January Thaw ever, but I will take what I can get. The days are getting longer, and we're almost 2/3 of the way through my least favorite month. Spring will come. Eventually.