Dancing

I have been studying the bugs in my backyard for five summers now, and I have learned a lot from my observations. I am no scientist, and I am not gathering pertinent data about anything, I am just working with pure curiosity, and sharing with you what I find. I still feel like I know almost nothing about insects, but I know a great deal more than I used to. But one thing about all of these observations that I make is that I don't remember everything I see, because I see too much. So I can make a 'discovery', and then make the same discovery again a year later because I forgot what I learned. Such is the case of the swarms of insects in my backyard the last month or so. It started with swarms of what I think are March flies, and I watched the way they behaved, and looked at them when they landed, so I knew what was in those swarms of insects. But then a month later, I am seeing swarms of insects still, and they fly the same way, an aerial dance, but there is a subtle difference in how they swarm; instead of being out in the open, over the grass paths, they swarm only around the trunks of trees. They do the same thing the March flies do when I get close to the swarm, they all land somewhere, but instead of landing on the leaves of whatever plant is nearby, they land on the ground under the tree. And in looking at them after they land, I realized that this is a different species of insect altogether. That's not something that you can really tell when you see them flying. They are small, and they fly fast, and you can never get very close to them when they are flying (well, I shouldn't say never. A couple of times I have accidentally walked directly through the swarms). You can tell they are different when they land, and if you're really paying attention, which it took me a while to figure out, they are swarming in different locations. And when I realized this today, that they were different insects, I remembered that I made the exact same discovery last year, I just forgot.

So... Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 I tried very hard to get a picture of these swarms. It's not easy. But you get the idea of what's going on.

 At the base of a tree

So, what do these insects look like?

 Tiny crane flies. I don't know if they are crane flies, but they look like small ones.

Random Bugs:

 More candy striped leaf hoppers on the winged euonymus

 This moth has been on the wall of the back porch all week. Not in exactly the same spot each day, but on that wall.

 A visitor to the front porch after dark

Tiny wasp, crawling all over a tree trunk

Days that I find spiders are better than days that I don't. Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 Eating an ant