Luck

Oh, where to begin...

Well, with the Backyard Bug of the Day, I suppose:

 Yes, I found a Backyard Bug of the Day - a green lacewing attracted to the porch light! I am pretty sure that a green lacewing has already been Backyard Bug of the Day this year, but showing up today so unexpectedly gives it special privileges.

 Pretty, green wings.

Now, remember last night I posted about the Christmas spider? Afterward (and I know I should have done this first, before I blogged about it), and well after midnight, meaning it was today (which matters because I am including it in today's blog), I looked up the reason for hanging a spider on a Christmas tree, and found several variations on a story about it. The basic gist of the legend is that a spider, having pity for a poor widow (or family in some versions) who could not afford decorations for the tree, covered the tree in sparkling spider silk to make it beautiful. This is said to be the origin of hanging tinsel on a tree. But also ornaments of spiders or spider webs. And in some of the stories the widow never wanted for anything ever again. Which is where the good luck part comes in. More on that later... But for now... having just read about luck and spiders, I heard a bug bonking into the reading lamp on my bedside table, and lo and behold, there was a ladybug:

 I know, a terrible picture - it wouldn't sit still. Anyway, ladybugs are seen as good luck in some places, I think. Of course, I have been bitten by these orange ones, which was definitely not good luck, but anyway, I decided to take it as a lucky omen.

 I found another one this evening. Also not cooperative for picture taking... I can tell it is not the same ladybug by the pattern of spots on its elytra.

Anyway, today was sunny for the first time in ages, and WARM again (I don't know what the high was, but it was in the 60s) - warm enough that I wore shorts all day. The sun was the thing the bugs were waiting for, obviously, because there were a lot of them flying around. Mostly gnats and flies, I think, and a few craneflies, which I have not seen in a few days, or maybe a week. And, because it was still damp out, springtails:

 It's in the middle of the picture.

And ants:

 Haven't seen those in a while.

And hoppers! Two different species!

I mentioned flies, right?

Anyway, back to that good luck thing... Arachnid Appreciation:

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 So, just after I finished reading about the Christmas spider, some accounts of which mentioned that it was good luck to find a spider in your house on Christmas day, I glanced over and saw a spider on my bedside table. Now, my bedside table is a place where I do NOT want to see a spider, but this one was good luck, right? It was also too shy to pose for pictures.

Then I went out for my bug walk today, and my backyard was decorated like the trees in the story - there were threads of spider silk all over the place. Not on any of the evergreen trees, sadly, so I didn't have a Christmas tree like the ones in the stories. But I did find a lot of spiders:

 This one...

 This one...

 It looks a bit like it is made of beads, like many of the spider ornaments I saw last night when I searched online for information about the tradition.

 This one... it has something in its web.

 I can't tell if it's a springtail or a gnat.

This one...

I saw one of the ones from yesterday, too. These were in the backyard, not my house, so I don't know if they count as lucky finds for Christmas day or not. But they were definitely a lucky find from the standpoint of looking for insects and arachnids to blog about, so... there you have it. And they are lucky to have this beautiful weather, and bugs to eat.