What Season Is It Anyway?

The thing about springtime is that it lacks commitment. It is lovely when it makes up its mind to be springtime, but some days it doesn't want to make the effort, and you get a day like today, cold, miserable, and blech. Well, we needed the rain. But we didn't need the chill. Winter is OVER.

Fortunately for whatever eggs there might be in the mourning dove's nest, the mourning dove is there to keep them warm:

 And the bright side of the gloom is that it makes the green of the crab apple leaves look really vibrant.

 And even with the cold, spring progresses and more buds begin to open. This is a dogwood bud.

I really didn't think I would find any bugs at all today, but there were a few. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I'm not saying fairies aren't real, but I do believe that probably many of the fairy sightings over time have been bugs.

 This bug's antennae were twirling madly, and I don't know if it was from the breeze, or if the bug was doing it. They were pretty amazing antennae, which you can kind of see here.

I am still not sure if the picture I posted the other day that I said might be a thrips was really a thrips, but I am pretty positive that this is:

 It's the black speck on the leaf.

There were two of them. (Today was one of those frustrating bug macrophotography days where I didn't get good pictures of anything because they wouldn't sit still).

 I thought I might see a lot of springtails today, because they don't mind the cold and they like the dampness after rain, but I only saw this one. Overall I have seen very few of them this year.

There was only one bumblebee in the rock garden.

 Playing peekaboo

A spider has left behind its trailing thread on the pussywillow. I didn't find the spider.

I did find other spiders, though, so let's have some Arachnid Appreciation:
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 In the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy II, a New York lawyer and a South African biologist are stranded in the Kalahari without food or water (though they do have a six pack of beer) due to a plane crash. Needing something to eat, they decide to steal an egg from an ostrich nest, which is being guarded by a male ostrich. Ostriches can be very dangerous, but the plan is that the lawyer will distract the ostrich and draw it away from the nest while the biologist steals an egg. The lawyer is nervous about this, and asks what she is supposed to do if the ostrich starts to chase her, and the biologist tells her that ostriches are very stupid and have poor eyesight, and all she has to do is lie down flat on the ground, and the ostrich won't be able to see her, and will go away.

So, the lawyer distracts the ostrich, it leaves the nest, the biologist steals the egg, and the ostrich happens to see him and begins to chase him. The lawyer screams at him to lie down flat, which he eventually does, and the ostrich steps on him, because it is stupid and has poor eyesight and doesn't see him, and then it goes back to its nest like none of this ever happened.

So why am I telling you this? Because this is what some species of spiders do when they feel threatened by a person with a camera (and presumably other things that might threaten them): they lie down flat. Now, in this scenario, we humans are the stupid ostrich with poor eyesight, according to the spider. This is pretty harsh, even though as animals go we don't have the best eyesight, or any of the senses, for that matter, but it's still better than a spider's eyesight. Anyway...

 ... Spider walking along...

 ... Spider realizes there's a human nearby and lies down flat. But I can still see you, spider.

Another fun spider hiding trick is to pull its legs up around its body to try to look invisible. I am not sure how this is supposed to work, but I think it's akin to when a toddler covers its eyes and says, "You can't see me!"

 This spider tried that trick, too.

 This one tried just moving away...

... but eventually it, too, tried to hide behind its legs.