A Hoot

The weather yo-yo has dropped down again, and today was about 20º colder than yesterday. It's fascinating, really, that the weather can do that. And kind of proves my point about the sun - yesterday was cloudy and warm, today was sunny and cold. So obviously the sun is not heating the earth. And it was windy today - whooo, was it windy!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I think this might be a Sweat Bee. Anyway, it was tiny, and beautiful, and slow-moving, because it was cold out. All excellent qualities in a bug if you are trying to take its picture. Well, tiny isn't that important. Actually, nor is beautiful. But slow-moving is an excellent quality. Second only to not-moving as traits for insect photography subjects go.

 Sometimes when I am taking pictures of bugs I am acutely aware of the fact that I am being watched.

Random Bugs:

 Bee (or wasp?)

 Case bearing caterpillar. Why I tried to take pictures of something tiny, dangling from a thread on a fiercely windy day I have no idea, but I got lucky with a couple of shots.

 Whee!

 Hopper

 The most exciting thing I saw in the backyard was what I saw after dark. Backyard Bird of the Day:

An owl. No, I have no idea what kind, and I am not exactly going to be able to identify it using this picture. It was sort of medium sized, so not a Norther Saw-whet, but other than that I have no idea. Yes, I am sure I could have taken a better picture, but I didn't have the time to set up the tripod. And it was dark. The owl is illuminated by a flashlight here. I heard the owl from inside the house and went outside to listen - generally when there are owls in the area at night I can hear them but not see them. However, once I got outside and heard it call from out there, I realized it was close, and stepped off the porch to look around to the side of the house. Even in the dark I could see where the owl was - now that there are so few leaves on the trees I could see its silhouette, thanks to the moon. The funniest thing about it was that while we were out there looking at the owl, a deer went crashing through the woods (at least, it sounded like a deer), and we couldn't see the deer, but we could see that the owl watched it go past its tree - it did that owl neck-swivel thing.