Trails

I have lately come to regard the weather forecast as the bug forecast - if the temperature is supposed to be above 40ºF, I assume it will be at least partly buggy outside. If it's supposed to rain, I figure I won't be able to go out. If it is supposed to be warm(ish), and raining, I hope that there will be a break in the rain so I can go out. Well, today was supposed to be in the high 50s and pouring, so I thought it would be warm enough for bugs, but I might not be able to go out. Instead, it only drizzled in the early afternoon, and was in the high 30s - which is not good bug weather (The heavy rain and warmth came later. It is 11:26 in the evening and 49ºF right now). But you know me, the eternal optimist, so I went out to look anyway.

As I am sure you can guess, it was not a fruitful search today, but there was still interest and beauty to be found:

 Don't worry, arachnophobes, no spiders, just spider webs. One thing I have read about spiders is that wherever they go, they trail a line of silk as kind of a safety line, and a quick anchor in case they need to jump off somewhere to escape in a hurry. In consequence, as you see, somewhere where a spider has been walking back and forth can be covered with silk lines. And then when it rains, those silk lines look beautiful. You can tell that the thorns of all different lengths on this vine made for a very erratic up and down path for whatever spider came by here.

The only arthropod (it gets harder and harder for me to call things bugs when I know they are not only not bugs, but no even insects) life I found today was a few springtails.

 I don't know if you've noticed in other pictures of springtails, but they are covered with tiny hairs...

Zoomed in you can see the effect of a misty rain on those hairs...

We're headed for a big freeze tomorrow. Don't expect to see any bugs for a while. I certainly don't.