Winter Surprise

Spring was not in the air today, but it was peeping out of the ground:

 This is not the earliest I have found a daffodil sprouting (I found them once in the first week of January!), but it is always a thrill. It reminds me that spring really IS coming.

And yet, in another part of the backyard...

 ... ice was growing out of the mud. It was a weird experience walking around in the backyard today. I mentioned the muddiness the other day, caused by the ground being frozen deep, but the top layer being both thawed and waterlogged. Well, right now the deep layers are frozen, and the top is frozen because after a warm weekend (the lack of  another blog from a whole weekend in the 50s is due to the fact that it was raining pretty much the whole time) the temperature plummeted last night, but under that iciness there is still mud. So the top is crunchy to walk on, but when you crunch through it you get the squish. It's like when you eat some kind of snack that is crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle.

But today, even though it was cold (topping out around 39ºF, I think), we had some lovely apricity, which is the warmth of the winter sun. So even though the air was cold, when I went out to get the mail, I saw that there were insects around:

 There were several flies basking in the sunshine on the side of the house. With the temperature in the 30s. I wasn't even going to do a bug walk until I saw that. It was a total bust other than the flies on the side of the house (there were a couple of species, but I only got a picture of this one. They were surprisingly active for how cold it was), but I did enjoy imagining this fly smiling at its haters, out there in the winter cold. I tried to find winter fireflies, to no avail, which is puzzling. There were so many around in the fall, but I haven't been able to find them even on warm, sunny days lately. I did see a swarm of crane flies outside the window, but when I went back out with my camera they scattered.

I did find one absolutely amazing thing in the backyard today, which I couldn't even believe I was seeing. It was one of the most surprising things I have EVER seen in my yard. It's at the bottom of the post, after this little mite for Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I know, terrible picture...

So, what was so surprising today? Backyard REPTILE of the Day!
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 I still can't believe I found this. This snake wasn't just THERE, it was feisty and active. Usually when it's just chilly they barely move. I have NEVER seen one in the winter. And remember, this cold-blooded animal was out there with the temperature in the 30s! Now, it was down by the rocks in the front of my house, where it is warmer than the backyard, and the rocks do warm up in the sun, but still! Why wasn't this snake in a stupor in a burrow in the ground? I wasn't even going to walk down to that part of the yard, because I didn't think there would be anything to see, but when I was there the movement of the snake caught my eye (and ear. Snakes moving over leaves have a distinctive sound), and there it was! You can see that it is not crazy about me being there, kind of in its face, but surprisingly it didn't flee, it just stayed there and looked at me. It would shift position when I got close, getting ready to attack if I got too close. I was so shocked to see this. I actually asked it what it was doing here.

 I'd almost swear there was more than one there, looking at this picture, but I think it's just looped around a lot.

 Flick of the tongue.

Zoomed-in look at it. I don't know what kind of snake it is. It was small, but it doesn't look like a garter snake. However, I have never been able to find a good resource for snake identification around here.

What an interesting day in the backyard!