So Long, Meteorological Winter!

Today was the last day of meteorological winter, and, like most days recently, it felt like spring, complete with a bit of spring rain. It only rained for a little while, though, so I did manage to get outside to look for bugs. I didn't find any (more on that later), but I did find this:

 I don't know if you can tell what this is from the picture, but it is a mole tunnel. I have found them in several places in the yard the last two days. I have never seen mole tunnels in February before, I don't think.

I did not find any bugs on my bug walk (except for spotting a few gnats flying), but I did come home this evening to find a few bugs on the porch, attracted to the porch light. This is the first time in quite a while I have had porch light bugs. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Moth. Quite small.

 There were a few midges, too.

As I said before, I didn't find any bugs on my bug walk, but I did find a spider, so here's Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

It was quite small, and I often wonder when I find a small spider if it is a species that is just small, or if it is not full grown.

Yo yo yo

The yo-yo is on the upswing today, and so it was good bug weather. I didn't get outside until late in the afternoon, so I was probably not out looking for bugs at prime bug time, but I did find a couple of things.

It's not usual to see something on a tree trunk and wonder if it's a bug or just a weird knob of bark. Today the item in question turned out to be a bug, and maybe a weird one. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 It sure did look like a bark bump at first, but bark bumps don't have legs.

 I am not sure if this is something new for me or not. I've been doing this long enough, and seen so many bugs, that I am sometimes uncertain whether something strange is a new strange, or just one that I have forgotten. I know I have seen things that look similar to this, but I think it's something I have not seen before.

 Naturally I don't know what it is, but it looks like a moth without wings. I would have thought that was impossible before, but I am now aware that in some species of moth, specifically the winter moth, the females are wingless. So this could be a wingless moth.

Random Bugs:

 I didn't get a good look at this, or a good shot of it. It looks a bit like a springtail, but it was much larger than any other springtails I have seen.

 Tiny hopper

Strangeness:

 I found this on a dead plant stem. I don't know what it is, but it looks like some sort of cocoonish thing.

Spring Tails in Winter

Doing bug walks is an every day thing for me in the spring, summer, and fall, but in the winter (which it technically still is), it's a hit and miss thing. If it's warm enough, I'll do a bug walk, if it's not, I won't. Or in the case of yesterday, I won't because it's pouring rain all day. Today we had some sunshine after a night of violent storming, and the temperature was in the bug-friendly zone, so I went out to look. I didn't find much, but I did find something that I have been looking for for weeks.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Snow flea. It's not really a flea, but a species of springtail. I have been looking for them for a while. Having had very little snow this year, I have been looking for them on tree trunks, and today I finally found them. I am not sure why I have been able to find other species of springtails, but not these, in the last few months, maybe they only show up in late winter. Anyway, I found one on this trunk...

... and then found several on another tree nearby. So, there you have it. No snow, but snow fleas.

Not Hibernating

There was something springy in the air today. It wasn't all that warm, at least not when I was outside (mid 40s, whereas it was in the 50s over the weekend), but there was just that feeling of spring - it's not a smell, really, it's just... well, you know it when you feel it. There was a quartet of chipmunks who spent a good portion of the day dashing back and forth across the driveway who seemed to feel it, too. I was surprised to see chipmunks, because I thought they'd be hibernating, but when I looked it up, I read that they don't really hibernate, they just sleep a lot in the winter, and sometimes come out on warm days. So, there they were.

But I was looking for bugs, not chipmunks. And I realized as I was walking along the woods path that I was not the only one looking for bugs today. Backyard Bird of the Day:

 I think this is a red-bellied woodpecker. It was also looking for bugs, but for a different reason than I was.

 Here's a zoomed-in look at the above picture. The macro lens is not meant for taking pictures of birds high up in trees. At least, not unless the photographer is also high up in the tree, and even then it wouldn't be idea.

I don't know how things worked out for the woodpecker, but I didn't really expect to find bugs today, or not anything interesting, even though it was sunny and above freezing. So, today's Backyard Bug of the Day was a bit of a surprise.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what it is, but it is a bit like a large rove beetle. It doesn't look like it has wings, though. It does move its back end a bit like a rove beetle, though. I do think it is a beetle of some kind, but I wonder if maybe it's in a larval stage? Anyway, I don't know, but it was definitely not something I expected to see scurrying across the path.

 Looking for a place to hide.

 Hiding... except for the back end.

 Other than that...

 ... all I found was one springtail.

Bounce

I feel like the weather is bouncing us around lately. Last weekend we had record cold, with lows below zero (Fahrenheit), and highs in the single digits. It snowed almost every day last week, and early this week, and then we had torrential rain. Today the high was 57ºF. Tomorrow will be the same. Then... who knows?

But you know what happens when you have a day in the 50s, regardless of the time of year - there will be bugs. And so there were today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Wasp basking in the sunshine on the front of the house.

There were a lot of little flying things around, most of which I did not get a good look at. But there was a swarm of what I assume were winter crane flies around the tree where I often saw them earlier in the winter.

 Those bright spots against the trunk are the bugs, in the air.

 A lot of flies and gnats.

And since there are bugs to eat, there are spiders to eat them - Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Birds of Many Feathers

What a difference a day makes.

Here's one of the avocado skins where the springtails were blithely gliding yesterday afternoon:

 Okay, they weren't really gliding, just sitting, but you get the idea. I had to dig through the snow to find this - I thought maybe it would be full of ice, and wondered what the springtails would have done if it froze, but it was just full of snow.

 Here's where I saw the caterpillar yesterday.

Needless to say, I didn't find any bugs today. However, because it snowed, I filled the bird feeder. I should have filled it before it snowed, but I forgot (I only fill it when it snows), so I had to go out in the 8+ inches of snow to do it. Before I filled it, there were no birds around. Within a few minutes of filling it, there were birds all over the backyard. I have to assume that there actually were birds in the trees somewhere where I did not see them, and once one saw me fill the feeder and came over, other birds were attracted. But it's still kind of amazing to go from an empty yard to one full of birds. How full of birds, you ask?

Well, let's start with the Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Junco, also known as snowbird. I don't know why. They mostly seem to feed on the ground beneath the feeder, where there is always plenty of food from the messier birds. There were quite a few of these around.

Here's a few...

 There were also blue jays.

 The blue jays have their own way of eating from the feeder.

 A female cardinal

 A woodpecker - downy or hairy, I can never remember which is which.

 Different woodpecker.

 Sparrow

 Nuthatch

 Bird, watching.

 Tufted titmouse

I don't know what this one is.

So, you know that common belief that robins are a sign of spring?

 This robin LAUGHS at such a notion.

 There was a whole flock of robins in the backyard today.

 And in case you're wondering, I know that it wasn't just the same robin that I was seeing over and over because I could see a lot of them at a time. Sometimes chasing each other. What was interesting about their appearance today was that they showed up after I filled the feeder, but robins don't eat from the feeder. In fact, neither did the woodpeckers. It's almost as if they were all just there because there were other birds around.

 Following Bird Law that says if someone is trying to take your picture, you have to hide your face.

I heard, but did not see, a crow. I also didn't see a chickadee, which was a little surprising in that they are very common bird feeder visitors, although I have seen very few of them the last few years, and I didn't see any mourning doves, which are also common feeder visitors. I did see about 20 of them the other day, though, feeding on something they were finding in the grass all over the backyard.

The Weather Spectrum

Let's discuss a few numbers. Yesterday we got a little over an inch and a quarter of rain, which would have amounted to a good six inches or so of snow if it had been colder. But even in the wee small hours of this morning the temperature was in the mid 50s. However, tomorrow we might actually get that 6 inches of snow. More numbers: Monday, which was the first day of February, remember, the temperature got into the 60s - the highest I saw here was 61 point something. I figured that had to be a record breaker, but nope. The record for that date in Connecticut was 67ºF! I forget what year that was, though (Not that I know these things offhand. I check the daily weather records in the paper when I want to know how the day's weather compares to the norm). Then yesterday the temperature only got into the 50s, and it set a record in at least one city in Connecticut (Bridgeport, in case you're wondering. And this one I found out from a Record Report on Weather Underground). Anyway, that's one of the great and crazy things about Connecticut - you can have a day in the 60s on Monday, and maybe a lot of snow on Friday. A February day in the 60s might not break a record, but two days later the 50s will. Nothing like variety.

Needless to say, I did not do a bug walk yesterday, because it was raining, but I did see a few bugs crawling around on the outside of the skylights, and at one point when I was out on the back porch I saw what looked like a moth flutter by. So today, even though it wasn't sunny, I figured with temperatures in the 50s there would have to be some bugs around. I was right. And I was surprised by what I found (Frankly, I don't know why I am always surprised by these things. If nothing else I should have figured out by now that I really have no idea what is supposed to be where, and when, and I should just expect the unexpected at all times).

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A caterpillar! I found it on the mountain laurel. It was quite small, about half an inch. Not at all what I would have thought to find today. I wonder what it's story is, what it's doing out and about, where it went when it was colder, and what's going to happen to it tomorrow when it's freezing again.

 Caterpillar close-up.

 Also on the mountain laurel. I went looking for these, even though I didn't expect to find them today with temps in the 50s and no sunshine, but there were a few there.

 A few ants were out and about today, too.

Most fun find today? A few avocado skins that some animal dragged out of the compost pile, and the rain filled with water. They were little, tiny ponds teeming with life:

Springtails! I love that you can see that the tiny, tiny bug makes a dent in the surface of the water, but the surface tension supports it.

 I don't know why these are clustered together, but this picture shows quite a variety of springtail shapes, colors, and sizes. I kind of wonder if this is two species, with adult and young of each.

 Aren't they adorable?

 Also... A fly? Or gnat? Or... aphid? I don't know. I don't think it wanted to be in the water. I probably should have helped it out, but sometimes in those situations you just make things worse. But in the picture it looks like its situation is worse than it appeared when I was looking at it outside.

 For size, there's a springtail right next to it. Although I realize that only helps you judge the size of the fly if you know the size of a springtail. This is one of the adult (I think) ones, which is about the size of a sesame seed. No, probably smaller than that...

 Another tiny thing:

 When I was taking pictures of this critter I thought its head was the upper end, but when I found the next one...

 ... I realized I was wrong. Anyway, these might be thrips? Or another kind of springtail? I don't know. I don't feel like looking it up, either... I am so lazy...

Here's some geology in action:

 This rock is about to lose a slab. I could just break it off - it's quite thin, but I want to leave it and see how long it takes for nature to break it. A bit of water freezing under there should do it...

And more interesting nature:

 Something has been shedding in the backyard.

 And this thing...

I don't know if this is just part of the tree, but it looks kind of like a chrysalis of some kind... So hard to tell... It was quite small, less than a half inch long.

Another surprise for me today was that I found a spider! So, time for Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I love these spiders that stretch their legs to try to blend in to branches and twigs and such. It doesn't work quite as well here, on the male flower buds of a hazelnut tree, but I still think it's cool. I don't think I have ever seen one of these so big before. Big being relative, of course, it's not that big a spider anyway. But definitely one to appreciate.