Ruckus at Dawn

We slept with the window open last night. It was lovely, with the cool, fresh night air coming in, until the peaceful, gray dawn was pierced by a feral shriek. I leaped out of bed and ran to the window, because it sounded like something dire was happening right outside, and I do love a bit of wildlife drama. Well, it wasn't just outside, it was over 100 yards away, high up in a tree, but it was definitely drama. I knew what I would see before I saw it, because I have heard those shrieks before.

Here's what was up in the tree:

 Raccoons can get into some nasty fights. In this picture you see them after they have settled down, but the one on the right had previously been chased out nearly to the end of the branch by the other one. I think me standing there was a distraction to them both. At any rate, when I went out (I was still pretty far away from them, and took these pictures with the telephoto lens), they both decided to sit calmly and stare at me.

This looks like a female, and perhaps one in a family way.

I noticed an interesting thing when I was standing out in the backyard before sunrise - birds are LOUD in the morning. You can hear them when you have the window open, of course, but from inside the house you don't really get the full effect of how loud they are. It was a cacophony of bird song. Of course, that racket I can sleep through; the wailing of a raccoon from a hundred yards away... not so much.

Things were much more peaceful in the bright sunshine of mid-day when I took my bug walk. And there is a lot of it these days, because there's not much shade yet - the only really shady part of the whole yard is under the crab apple trees (which just conveniently happens to be my favorite part of the backyard at the moment). As they say, spring in Connecticut is the most beautiful 15 minutes of the year. Ha ha. Just exaggerating, of course. Spring usually last at least half an hour. Don't mind me, I am feeling grouchy about the fact that once again we had chilly weather, chilly weather, chilly weather, one gloriously perfect day in the 70s (my ideal), and then WHAM, right to the 80s. It's been in the 80s all week, and today we flirted with 90. The nights are still nippy, though - it's generally more than 40º warmer during the day than at night. I imagine the bugs find it confusing. But here's the part that has me really annoyed. Spring was really late, and summer is really early. Which means spring has been too short. Granted, it's just the temperature I am talking about - everything still looks beautiful like it should, pink and pale green and lovely. I adore it, even when I hear reports that this weekend we are going to have a Pollen Tsunami. I may feel differently when it actually happens, but right now, everything is beautiful and growing, and I just can't worry about the fact that tomorrow my eyes will be watering too much for me to see it.

Here's one of the culprits:

 The oak trees are blooming, along with a bunch of other trees, and because of the late spring they are all apparently blooming at the same time, instead of taking turns the way they normally would. Also, the pollen experts tell us that the extreme amount of snow this winter has something to do with it, too. I forget what. Anyway, massive amounts of pollen are expected this weekend.

 But look how pretty oak leaves are in the spring!

 The other crab apple is just starting to bloom today. It has darker flowers than the first one, and doesn't ever have nearly as many.

I think this is a Jack-in-the-pulpit. Such a weird plant...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A weevil.

 Actually, two weevils - can you see the other one lurking?

 There it is! (It looks like a spider has passed by here).

 Weevils are such interestingly bizarre looking creatures.

Note, by the way, the very green background of these pictures. No longer the grays and browns of winter.

I was walking around the backyard today thinking about the fact that thus far this spring, aside from the loopers I saw early on, the only caterpillars I have seen have been dead ones in the clutches of predators. And then I came across this scene:

A huge blob of little caterpillars. I looked them up; they are eastern tent caterpillars Edit: Correction - they are forest tent caterpillars. They are social insects, as you can see. Safety in numbers, you know. Not that they really need it, because according to what I read, they taste terrible, so there's not many things that want to eat them. Also, if they feed on cherry trees, they are toxic. I have no intention of trying one.

 I am still kind of creeped out by caterpillars, and seeing a mass of them like this was a bit unnerving.

 They are kind of pretty though. Except that all together like this they look like a writhing mass of hair - like a bathtub drain clog come to life.

 On the upper part of the branch in this picture I think are the leftovers from a moult.

 I checked on them later in the day, and there were fewer of them in the place where I had seen them. I looked around and saw some walking on a branch...

 And then found where the rest of them had gone. From what I read, they are basically commuters. They all build a tent together (which these have not yet done, that I could see), and they will live together in the tent, and three times a day will all go out together to eat. Edit: No, they won't build a tent. For some reason, forest tent caterpillars don't build a tent, they make a mat of silk on the branch of the tree and all hang out together on that.

 As you see here.

This was even later in the day. After eating the commute home again. You can see the remains of the leaf stems of the leaves they ate in the background. I guess they are all piled up for the night (this was in the evening). They did not go back to the place they had been in the morning, but I guess it there's no tent there, they wouldn't. Or, perhaps what I read was wrong. [Edit: Yes, it was wrong.] This is the internet, after all.

I can't help but wonder how I happened to miss all of those caterpillar eggs on that tree, when my reading (if it was correct) would indicate that they would have been there for almost a year.

Speaking of eggs on trees...

 Two days ago there were two clumps of ladybug eggs, yesterday there were three, today there were five (they're not all in this picture).

Random Bugs:

GAH! Butterfly!

 This thing is really tiny, and I couldn't really see what it was at first; it moved like a spider, so I thought that's what it was. But once I got in close, I could see that it has six legs, not eight. I still don't know what it is...

 ... though we got very up close and personal. If you want to know how small it is, it's smaller than a freckle.

 Another weevil.

 Carrion beetle. I will spare you the details of how I spotted this one.

More bees!

Very funny.

 Today whenever I saw a bee on a flower other than a crab apple flower I wondered why they weren't over with all the other bees. This reminded my of the Yogi Berra quote, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Or something like that.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Baltimore Oriole (at least, that is what I call it. I know there was talk of changing the name to the eastern oriole or something like that, years ago, but I lived in the Baltimore suburbs for a few years when I was a kid, am a fan of the baseball team, and so I am sticking with Baltimore Oriole, thank you very much). I shouldn't have awarded it Bird of the Day status, because, as you can see, it was not cooperative, and I didn't get a good picture, but I was so happy to see it in my backyard that I did it anyway. We used to have orioles nesting in our yard every spring, but they I have not even seen one in a couple of years, so I am happy that they are back.

 As far as I know, orioles are fruit eaters, so I guess it is probably eating last year's crab apples. On the other hand, those apples have been there since last summer, and nobody ate them then, so why now? This tree has been really popular with birds since it started blooming this week.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I looked in the package bin today and saw that I had received two packages. It probably tells you something about my state of mind when I tell you that my thought when I first saw that I had two packages, containing things I ordered and therefore want, was, "Oh no! The spiders!" At least one survived the invasion of boxes, and came out with them when I pulled the boxes out.

 Here it is on the ground. I like spiders, but I wasn't going to pick this up and put it back in the bin. It can go there itself if it wants to.

I inadvertently ruined this spider's web yesterday. I had seen the web for a couple of days, and never could find the spider, because it hides in a hole in a tree. Today I was happy to see that not only was the web rebuilt, but the spider was at least partially poking out of its lair.

In person this spider didn't look so menacing.