Redhead

We have a number of dead trees in the woods around our house, and we leave them standing (as long as they are not close enough to fall on the house or otherwise be a danger) because dead trees are an important part of the ecosystem. Specifically, we leave them standing for this:

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Woodpeckers use dead trees as nesting sites, and also find food in them. I don't know if this pileated woodpecker was looking for insects to eat, or if it was making a winter roosting spot (though the area where it was pecking doesn't look big enough for that).  When I walked out the back door today the first thing I noticed was that there were a lot of birds flying around. I saw blue jays, robins, and crows that I was able to quickly identify, and other small birds that were flying around among the trees that I didn't see well enough to know what they were. I also heard a woodpecker pecking, but what was striking about it (ha!) was that it sounded different, and louder, than the woodpeckers I usually hear in the backyard. This made it unusually easy for me to figure out where the sound was coming from, and I was excited to see that this was the bird responsible.

 The pileated woodpecker is one of my favorite birds (my favorite being the puffin, by the way). I have only seen them in my yard on two other occasions, and anywhere else in the world once (in New Hampshire). It is impressively large, and so striking.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Wasp on catalpa leaf. I know it's pretty difficult to get a sense of size from pictures taken with the macro lens, so I'll tell you that this was a rather small wasp. Maybe half an inch long.

 It had an amusing way of standing on its head. The first year that I started studying the bugs in my backyard I noted that the catalpa tree kept its leaves, and kept them green, for longer than any other tree in the backyard, and when everything else had shed their leaves, the catalpa tree was kind of the go-to place to find bugs. That hasn't necessarily been true every year, and this year the trees have been kind of haphazard about changing color and dropping leaves, but the leaves on the catalpa trees are still mostly green, and on at least one of them I can usually find a few bugs. Usually they are on the center rib of the leaf, which makes me think that it is the best place to suck the sap from the leaf.

Other Bugs:

 Still lots of candy-striped leaf hoppers.

 

 It was cold today–I'm not even sure if it reached 50ºF–which sometimes makes bugs sluggish, and therefore cooperative, like this fly.

 Looper caterpillar dangling from a branch. Anyone else think it looks like a dinosaur? Like, the back end, perhaps? No? I have always thought that about loopers when I find them dangling like this.

 This is the first March fly I have seen in several days (it's on a catalpa leaf). Male. I think of all the March flies I have seen close-up, still only three of them have been female, and I only ever saw one mating pair.

 I am not sure if this is a large mosquito or a small crane fly.

Same with this one.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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This is the spider that is currently living under the rain gauge. During the summer the space under the rain gauge tube is popular with crickets, but late fall and well into the winter it is popular for spiders.