It's SPRING!

Happy First Day of Spring!

Meteorological spring. In the northern hemisphere. And I realize that as you're reading this, it's actually the second day of spring, because I am writing this about the first day of spring at the end of that day. Also, there's still quite a lot of snow on the ground. And it's really quite meaningless, really, the first day of spring, because the weather won't suddenly change as a result of the earth's position relative to the sun (although it was quite a beautiful day. Close to 50ºF). And I should possibly just refer to it as the Vernal Equinox.

Anyway, Happy Spring!

 There will be daffodils. Eventually.

I saw a lot of insects today. Most of them were in flight, so I didn't get pictures of them, and a lot of them were just terribly uncooperative. And there wasn't anything that I haven't been seeing on and off for the last month. But it was a beautiful day, and SPRING!

I haven't chosen a Backyard Bug of the Day, but here's what I found:

 One excessively uncooperative springtail (SPRING!)

 A few winter fireflies (even though it's SPRING!)

 A cocoon. Which reminds me, there was an egg mass of a white-marked tussock moth on a tree, and I have been checking on it all winter, and today, it was gone. I don't know if something ate it, or if it somehow got knocked of the tree, or what. I am pretty disappointed. It made it through the whole winter, and now, it's gone.

 Wasp

 Candy-striped leaf hopper

Fly. There were quite a few flies around today (and gnats. And crane flies), but this was the only one that let me take its picture.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A lot of the insects I saw today were flying low around the leaf litter, which made it the perfect place for a spider (which also probably spent the winter in the leaf litter):

 Jumping spider on a rock