Without Musings

I thought no deep thoughts on my bug walk today, so I don't really have anything to say today. Therefore, we're going to have to go with "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I'll post a few thousand words' worth for you.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is the largest moth I have seen so far this year. The others have all been really small, about half an inch long.

 Trying to blend in on a tree

 

 I'm starting to see winter fireflies in random places like on the side of the house, but there are still some groups on the trunk of their favorite tree.

 The ants were back in force today.

 Springtail

 Stonefly. This one was about twice the size of the others I have been seeing in the past couple of weeks.

 Small moth

 It is a thrill to see flowers blooming in early spring, simply on their own merits of beauty, but also because it means spring is here. But if you are a bug blogger, or even just someone who liked to look for bugs, there is an added attraction of flowers in that if there are flowers there will usually be bugs feeding in/on them. But so far, I have not been able to find bugs on the flowers (not completely true: I have seen two bugs on the purple crocus that bloomed last week, but both of them flew away before I could get close enough to photograph them). But finally, there's a bug on a crocus!

 Maybe a closer view would be better.

And on the front porch:

 Finally the ichneumon wasp stayed still for a picture.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I saw these two spiders on a collision course, each approaching the corner of the arm of the chair from a different side. Picture two people walking along the street toward a street corner and then meeting right at the corner, having not seen each other coming...

 Not exactly how it played out, and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the moment they bumped into each other. But they both seemed startled by it, with the lighter colored one really zooming back in consternation. Then it dropped off the arm of the chair to get away.

 So I guess this one won the field.

I had to go out to run errands today, and as I walked past the snake slope, there was no snake, even though it was rather warm and sunnyish, so I figured I must have been right, and the snake had move on. But there it was when I came back, all curled up, basking in the... well, it wasn't really sunny by then...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 I went inside and got my camera, and of course as soon as I got close, the snake uncurled itself...

 ... and away it went, back down its hole.