Spring Surprises

Two things happened today that I was not expecting. First, it was in the 60s today. That's not what I had been seeing in the forecasts, and you can believe that if I knew today was supposed to be so lovely I would have been looking forward to it. It really did feel like spring on this first day of meteorological spring. What is ironic about that is that it usually takes at least a month for spring to start feeling like spring instead of winter. Secondly, I think that today's Backyard Bug of the Day is a new species for me, and after having done this for so long, it is amazing to me that I can still be finding new species of bugs in my backyard. It probably shouldn't be surprising, given the sheer number of bug species that are possible to find in this area that I have never seen, but it's amazing to me anyway.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is a picnic beetle. There is actually one other thing that was surprising today, and that is that I was able to fairly easily identify this insect in my field guides. It wasn't in the first one where I looked, though there were some that looked similar, but there was a picture of this exact patterned beetle in another book. After seeing the name I became less sure that this is new to me, because the name was kind of familiar. By this point, I can't always remember what I have seen and what is new.
I don't know where it got its name, it feeds on tree sap, not picnics.

 

 Photobombed

And speaking of which...

 

 Of course there were winter fireflies around today.

 

I found this cocoon attached to the bottom of a board:

And speaking of things that will develop into other things...

 I think this might be a cedar apple rust... thing? I have never seen one that was not attached to a cedar tree before, and it doesn't look exactly like it, but it does look like it could become cedar apple rust. Which I realize is a nonsensical thing to say. But it was an interesting find.

 Beetle on the side of the house.

There is a tree where I like to look for candy striped leaf hoppers on nice winter/spring days, because, well, that is where I am likely to find them. This is because it's leaves don't all fall off in the winter, and the cslhs like to bask in the sunshine on the leaves. So I looked for them every day this week, and only saw one or two, which I found odd and disappointing. Until today...

 Today I realized that the leaf hoppers are there, they are just not on the leaves. They are on the thin branches. How many can you see in this picture? (Hint: there are two).

 Can you see what the middle one is doing?

 Expelling a droplet of honeydew.

 I came to a realization. The reason they are on the stems instead of the leaves is because they feed by sucking juices out of plants. They can't suck anything out of the leaves, because the leaves are all dried up, but the sap is probably flowing in the tree branches, so they are all lined up on the branches to feed.

 And then, of course, when I thought I had figured everything out, I started to see them on the leaves, too.

Remember the other day when I posted a picture of some barbed wire that is sticking out of a tree?

 I thought you might like to see what that looks like.

We went out this evening, and found this tiny moth on the porch when we got home, attracted to the light:

I don't know if you've noticed, but there has been a pretty decent variety of spiders in the backyard this week. Today I saw at least 3 species of jumping spiders (I only got pictures of one of those), and two other species of spiders. And there were others earlier in the week. So much Arachnid Appreciation:
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It's become a habit to look for snakes now when I go out to get the mail. It's weirdly disappointing when I don't see one, as was the case today, but there was one when I went out to do my bug walk.
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 This one was shy. I didn't get any closer than this...

... before it decided to scoot down the hole (which is what it is doing here).