Bark

Today was another beautiful spring day, so I couldn't resist spending it outside, sloshing through the slushy snow (which is deeper than it looks in some places still...), looking for bugs. There is a technique to looking for bugs, which involves looking in the places they tend to hang out, obviously (I didn't say it was a difficult technique). Since most of the yard is still covered in snow, including most of the plants, that leaves tree trunks as the place to look. I looked at a lot of tree trunks today. I am sure if anyone was watching me I looked a bit odd, but you do what you have to do.

So, do you see any bugs?

Yeah, me neither. I was surprised at the surfeit of insects today. After all it was warm (55ºF!), sunny, beautiful, wonderful, if I had a pair of wings I would have been flying, but the bugs didn't feel that way, I guess. Because I stared at a lot of tree trunks without bugs on them. It was interesting in a way - I noticed that we have a greater variety of tree species in the yard than I had thought before.

And then... I found today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A looper. Funny thing is, I was pondering the chances of seeing one of these today, because I was surprised by seeing one some time in December, I think, which made me wonder whether a day like today would draw one out. And I guess it did. However, before I saw it I had dismissed the likelihood of seeing one, figuring that the one in December was just late at going into a winter hiding place. I didn't really expect to find one today. And I actually found two.

 Close up of Looper #1

 Looper #2 - The snow has melted at the base of this tree (on the other side of the yard from the tree where I found the first looper), and I leaned down to see if there was anything lurking in the moss, and there it was.

It was much smaller than the other one, and much more active. The first one didn't move at all while I was looking at it, but this one was on its way somewhere.

My backyard surprises me a lot...

Nothing else I saw today was surprising, however, except maybe how much the snow on the table in the arbor has melted in just two days:

Do you remember how much snow was on there two days ago when I posted last? Because the ground is still completely covered with snow it's hard to really grasp how much of it has melted, but this provides an encouraging visual. As does the fact that the snow piles next to the driveway are no longer taller than I am.

But you didn't come here to see my picnic table, you came here to see bugs:

 Winter firefly. I expected to see more of these.

A LOT of whatever these are. Today they were high up on the trunk, rather than gathered at the base.

 I am guessing these are something pupating...

The leaves of this oak tree hosted quite a few of them.

Let's see, what else did I see in the yard today...

 An interesting fungus...

 Buds ready to really make it spring...

 Lots of feathers leftover from the hawk's lunch last week...

There's some sad (for me, anyway) bug news this week.

 If you read this blog last summer you may remember a swallowtail caterpillar that I adopted. I eventually made its chrysalis, but did not emerge as a butterfly in the two weeks or so that were expected. I thought it was possible, though unlikely, that it was going to overwinter in there, and emerge in the spring, even though it was July when it should have come out. So, I put the butterfly cage out on the back porch, because if it was going to overwinter in there, it needed to have winter. It was in an awkward place in the cage that made it hard for me to see it, but I would try to check on it occasionally. Well, a couple of days ago I happened to notice that the way it was moving in the wind made it look empty. It looked too light. So I opened the cage and took a look, and saw...

A hole. And not one that looks like the butterfly emerged from it, but one that looks like something ate the pupa. It could have been something that burrowed in (though keeping that from happening is the point of the cage with a screen on it), or, it could be that the caterpillar was infected with a parasite that ate its way out when it matured inside the pupating caterpillar. Sounds gross, but I have read that there are insects that do that. So I am really disappointed. Nature can be harsh. Especially for caterpillars. The fuzz that you see at either end of the chrysalis is the silk thread that anchored it.

I guess you could say that today's specimen for Arachnid Appreciation found me rather than the other way around. I was sitting outside on the front porch, watching tiny winged insects and feeling jealous of them, when my husband came home, and he pointed out that I had a spider on my shoulder...
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 Here it is on my finger...

And on my husband's.