Owlish

The backyard was full of surprises today, starting with...

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Barred owl. I have seen these in my yard before, and heard them many times, but always at night. They make a variety of noises, including a hoot sequence (that many people say sounds like "Who cooks for you?"), and also a sound that is like the a-oogah sound of an old car horn. I have heard conversations between at least 4 of them in different trees in the backyard. I have not been able to see them during these conversations, though. And when I have seen them at night, it has always been a fleeting glimpse. This time, I was walking one of my wooded paths in broad daylight, and this swooped past me; I think it was in a tree close to where I was walking, and I startled it so it swooped away to another tree a little farther away. These pictures were not taken with my macro lens, but with my zoom; my husband was home and working in the backyard, so I had him go inside and get it while I kept an eye on the owl. This one did not say anything while I was watching it.

 The owl just sat there for quite a while, looking around...

 

 It looked kind of sleepy.

 The great thing about owls, compared to other birds: if you are behind an owl and want to take a picture of its face, you can still do that.

 It did not seem at all bothered by me and my husband standing there, about 30 feet away.

 This is the point where it is just about to regurgitate an owl pellet. I thought it was about to do something else that I didn't want to take a picture of, so I missed that bit.

 

 After it flew away (and to me it looked like it swooped down low farther away in the woods, so I think maybe it was after more prey), we went over to the tree where it had been to look for the pellet. I found this on a vine below: owl feather?

 

 I don't think we found the pellet I saw it regurgitate, because that one was pretty big, but we did find others. In case you don't know what an owl pellet is, owls eat their prey whole, and later regurgitate the undigestible parts, like the fur and bones.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. I don't know what kind of beetle this is, but it's one of my favorites, in spite of the fact that I only ever see them on the ground, which makes them hard to photograph. This one was crawling around in some moss.

 And hiding.

Today was a beautiful day, and I figured just from the forecast that I would go out to do a bug walk, but I wasn't sure I would find anything because lately even on some really nice days I haven't been able to find bugs. But as soon as I opened the front door to go out to get the newspaper, I found out that today was going to be a day of unexpected bug finds:

Small milkweed bug. I was really surprised to see this. I hardly saw any of these in my yard this year, even when there were milkweed plants for them to feed on.

 Later, I found this, a large milkweed bug. I know you can't tell the size difference from the pictures, but you can see the difference in the markings on their backs.

 Today the temperature was in the high 50s, and I found a few candy striped leaf hoppers on a mountain laurel, just about the only plant that still has leaves right now.

Beetle crawling around on a tree trunk:

 

Ants crawling around on another tree trunk:

 There were a few flies around today. This is the only one I got a picture of.

I also saw some small swarms of winter crane flies, and a couple of winter fireflies.

A couple of evenings recently I have been out in other places and had moths flit past me, and today I found one attracted to my porch light. That may not be especially notable; there is a moth called the winter moth. I don't know if that is what this is, but it could be.

Funny how many "winter" bugs there are: winter moth, winter firefly, winter crane fly... And here for so long I thought that bugs all died in the winter.

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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