A Wing

Today the icy grip loosened a bit (it got to 29ºF. It's all relative), and as I went out to get the newspaper in the sunshine I thought that maybe I should try a bug walk today, just because I might find some snow fleas, or perhaps spot a winter firefly basking on a tree trunk. What I did not expect was to pick up my newspaper and find this:

 There was an insect wing on my newspaper bag. I don't know where it came from. Everything is covered in snow. A rather prosaic guess would be that it was probably in the car of the person who delivers our paper since a buggier time of year, and static electricity stuck it to the newspaper bag. I think insect wings are beautiful, so it was nice to see, even if it's always a bit sad to see a wing detached from its insect (although ants rip off their own wings after they swarm, so I guess it's not always sad).

Since I have lost perspective on weather, I then proceeded to do my bug walk with the temperature below freezing. I probably should have made a connection between my instinct that I didn't have to wear my tick-repellent pants and the unlikelihood of finding bugs, but I didn't. I am pretty sure I saw a gnat, though, but it was something I spotted in my peripheral vision, so I can't be 100%. I did not find any winter fireflies; I should have known it was too cold for them. And though I did eventually find something, which I will show you in a minute, I regretted going for a bug walk today, my first time walking around my backyard since around midnight on Christmas Eve. It wasn't the cold, it was that my backyard was a scene of carnage.

 I do love the marks made in the snow by birds' wings and tails when they swoop down, but it it hard not to think about what they may have swooped down to grab. Maybe this was a bird grabbing some of the bread I tossed out yesterday, but it's a pretty big tail mark. More likely it was a bird that swooped down to grab something else that was dining on the bread. But this is a mild scene; elsewhere in the yard the snow was bloody, with bits of fur fluttering in the breeze. There were two such scenes where something (most likely a bird, based on the lack of predator footprints around them) ate rabbits or squirrels. I love the predators equally with their prey, but it is hard not to feel sympathy for the defenseless ones. Except they're not defenseless, they're fast, they can see, they can hear... It's a system, and they all have their part. But bloody snow is gross and disturbing, as was the unidentifiable thing I found on the snow, too, that I didn't want to examine closely.

As I should have expected, except for the possible gnat, I didn't find any insects out and about today in the snow, not even snow fleas on or near trees, but I did have some curiosity about what I would find if I dug up a piece of wood out of the snow (only about an inch or two deep in some places) and turned it over. There was one thing that immediately scurried out of sight, so I don't know what that was, but I did get to see this Backyard Bug of the Day:

Springtail. I am not sure if it's one of the species that are referred to as snow fleas. When I flipped the board it got dumped into the snow, but it made its way back to the dirt. I think this has already been Backyard Bug of the Day lately (relatively speaking, lately), but I don't care. Props to this bug for being findable in the snow and cold.

 This one, another species of springtail, was also under the board. Here it is crawling among ice crystals on the piece of wood. I would guess that the board and the snow are at least some insulation about the extreme cold we've been having, but they can't be much. The board was frozen to the ground.

Tomorrow we are supposed to have a blizzard. And then the temperature is supposed to drop again, to be brutally cold for a couple of days. Definitely NOT bug weather.