The Bugs in the Backyard: The Spice of Life

I don't really want to think right now, and I have a ton of pictures from today, so I am just going to post things in the order I wrote down the file numbers on my note sheet, and comment as necessary.

So, what's the first picture?

Ladybug on a window. It's refreshing to see a ladybug on the outside of the house for a change.

Next... Backyard Birds of the Day:

Mourning doves. My least favorite birds. But they looked so nice sitting there, I couldn't resist taking their picture. Lately I am seeing a lot of birds paired up. It's that time of year.

Of course, being mourning doves they had to be uncooperative. That first picture was taken through the storm door, and when I cautiously went out onto the porch to try to get a better shot, naturally they flew to separate branches.

Next... Plants. And a rock:

Things are sprouting.

And blooming.

A piece of mica glinting in the sun caught my eye.

But look what held on for the last two days:

Remember that pile of snow that was left on Saturday, that I thought would be gone by the end of yesterday? It wasn't. But it was gone less than two hours after I took this picture. Well, we did hit 60ºF today!

I've been disappointed that I have not found any praying mantis egg cases (except for old ones. These things seriously stick around for a long time. There's one on my blueberry bush in the backyard that's over 2 years old), and today I was excited to spot this one. But when I leaned in to get the picture, I saw the remains of a baby praying mantis (that thing dangling on the right). So this has to be from last year. I guess I won't be seeing any baby praying mantises this year.

Apparently the weather is now warm enough for wasps to emerge from wherever they spent the winter. I saw a few of them today (including one dead one laying in the grass. No idea what happened there). This one was alive, on the foundation of the house.

This one was on the porch. Possibly the same one.

Backyard Bugs of the Day:

I spotted these two wasps on the side of the house. It seemed unusual to see two wasps together, but they appeared to be minding their own business...

And then suddenly this happened.

They look kind of tangled up.

I don't know if this was fighting, or some more friendly social behavior, but it looked like fighting. In fact, it looked like the kind of fighting you see between two people who don't know how to fight, who just kind of slap at each other's hands.

Then they separated...

Okay, going their separate ways...

No, maybe not...

That little poke in the butt was probably not a good idea...

And they started up again. This went on for a while, off and on. Sometimes one would fly off for a bit, and then come back and start over again. Once they both fell off the house, and then flew back up to fight some more. They were still going at it when I walked away - and there was another wasp nearby, who may have wanted to join in the fray.

You can get pretty close to wasps when they're distracted.

Another ladybug

A couple of moths:

Both of these moths fluttered by me and landed nearby, which is probably the only reason I saw them.

Especially this one. That's some pretty good pretending to be a bit of curled bark.

Have you noticed yet that I saw a lot of bugs today? It was the first day that really, truly felt like spring was here for good. It's probably not, we will probably have more cold days, but today it felt like winter was over and forgotten (at least, it was forgotten once that last bit of snow melted. Incidentally, on the way to our Easter celebrations yesterday we traveled only about 15-20 miles, but found a very different situation between here and there. We passed through areas that still had a lot of snow. It was shocking).

By the way, the woolly bear caterpillar in the package bin appears to be dead. I don't know what happened - last week it seemed to be alive, but now... I don't think it even got squished by a package. It just... died.

Okay, more bugs...

The Cricket has moved on, but I looked under the board again today, and in addition to a lot of sow bugs, saw some really, really, really, really tiny things. Think tinier than the period at the end of this sentence. The kind of thing you only see if it's moving. Tinier than springtails. Any tinier at all and they wouldn't even be visible.

I got pictures of a couple of them - not good pictures, because they are too tiny to see well enough to focus, but pictures. The amazing thing is that there were at least three different kinds of these tiny critters (I don't know if they are insects or other kinds of arthropods):

Hint: There are two in this picture, and they are round and dark. One of them is pretty much in the middle of the picture.

Ah, spring. When a young bugs thoughts turn to love.

In addition to this pair, there were several more of these bugs on this young tree.

Like this one.

There were a lot of these bugs swarming near the ground:

Occasionally one would land. This is the only one that landed where I could get a picture of it. The swarms of these bugs is what really made it feel like spring. And I mean that in a good way.

Hmmm... Looking at the list of picture files for uploading, apparently I saw a lot of spiders today. Arachnid Appreciation:
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I saw many, many jumping spiders on the house today. I did not take pictures of all of them. Just this one.

Trying to look like it is not there.

This is an unusual sight - two different species of spiders so close together. They were eve closer together when I flipped the board and spotted them, but the little one on the right was fast, and moved away before I could get a good shot. I wonder if they realized how close together they were when they were in the dark under the board.

Here's the bigger of those two spiders.

I know this is a bad picture, but it was moving - I spotted it as it was dangling from a thread, just about at my eye level. I am lucky I didn't walk into it. I like spiders, but not on my face or in my hair.