Hoot Hoot Hoot

There are owls calling in the woods tonight. I can hear them from inside, but that's such a remote way of experiencing nature, especially during a time of year when the windows are closed, that it wasn't enough for me, and I went outside to the back porch for some sky-and-owl time. From the sound of it I could tell that the owl was pretty far away, not sitting in a tree right outside the house, but what I didn't realize until I went outside is that there are at least three of them, and they are calling to each other and responding. I have no idea what they are talking about, what owls may have to communicate to each other, but their hooting has to be some kind of dialog between them, because who else who owls be trying to speak to? Owls fly silently to avoid alerting their prey to their presence -they wouldn't want to announce it. But for me, standing out there in the dark, looking at the stars, to witness their conversation is a gift.

As for the daytime in the backyard, I noticed two things when I looked out my window this morning. I noticed that there were a lot of little bugs flying around. And I noticed this tree:

 No, I did not take this picture from the window, I went outside to take it. Ignore the leaves at the bottom of the picture, that's a different tree. What we are focusing on here is the bare branches of the catalpa tree. They may not appear particularly noteworthy, given the it is the season when trees lose their leaves, but yesterday this tree was covered with leaves. In the past, the catalpa trees are the ones that have kept their leaves, still green, when all of the other trees in the backyard (except the oaks, whose leaves turn brown but sometimes don't completely fall until the spring) are bare.

 But there they are, all the leaves from that catalpa tree, on the ground under the tree. It probably doesn't sound all that weird, but trust me, from the window this morning it was a peculiar sight. There are a couple of other catalpa trees in the backyard, and one of them lost about half of its leaves last night, and the other still has most of its leaves, and they are still green.

As for those flying insects:

There were swarms of the insects that may or may not be March flies in various places in the backyard. I would see a bunch of them flying together...

 ... and then they would all land on a nearby plant.

 

Sometimes they appeared to be flying in formation. I don't know if this is coincidence or if this really is a coordinated ballet.

Synchronized flying?

 There were a few tussles in the air. This could all be about mating.

 These two landed on the same leaf, and since they both look like males I am thinking that this is a bit of territorial squabbling, and that they didn't want to share the leaf. One of them flew away.

 This one was cleaning its wings with its rear legs.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Tiny beetle

A little too bug for the magnifier.

Random Bugs:

 This is the first bee I have seen in weeks.

Today was a three-cricket-species day:

 Tree cricket

 Don't know what kind this is, but it's female.

 

 This might be a new species. I should probably have made it Backyard Bug of the Day.

 Striped garden caterpillar still hanging around. I think the temperature dropped below zero last night. I wonder what effect that has on this caterpillar, to go from freezing to warm-ish and back again, repeating a few times over the course of a few weeks. I also wonder if it is going to overwinter as a caterpillar, or as a pupa.

Unappreciated Arachnid:

 Rare view of the underside of a tick. This is two days in a row I have found one of the nasty creatures. This picture was taken on a rock, but I found both ticks on one of my lawn chairs, which somehow makes me hate them even more, like they were waiting on the lawn furniture to ambush me.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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I don't mind spiders on the lawn chairs: