Free Ants

Most of the snow had melted by the afternoon and I spent some time looking out the window at the birds that were feeding on the lawn. Ironically, it was mostly snowbirds (aka juncos). I don't know if it was seeds or bugs they were after, but there were a lot of birds that seemed happy that the snow was gone. It was also warm out, so I was expecting to find a decent number of bugs, but I was wrong; there were very few bugs around. What is interesting, though, is that about half the bugs I saw were ants, one crawling on the leaf litter, and few crawling on tree trunks. My guess is that they were under the snow, and now that the snow is gone (for now), they were free to crawl out and go about their ant business again.

A weird thing happened today. The weather forecast said there was a 50% chance of rain, and it didn't rain! That's so strange! (Sarcasm. Because it always rains lately. And to give the weather its due, it did at least LOOK like it was about to rain all day. Anyway, we're expecting rain and/or snow tomorrow). Bugs were scarce. I saw a couple of winter crane flies:

 This was the only one (of 3) that wasn't flying, so it's the one I was able to photograph.

 And this winter firefly is still in its bark crevice, but it keeps getting deeper and deeper. I can't help but notice that from this vantage point it looks like a sunflower seed. I find sunflower seeds stuck into the bark of trees sometimes; I have read that chickadees stash food that way, and maybe other birds do, too, so I wonder if any birds ever think they're pulling a sunflower seed out of a crack in tree bark and it turns out to be a winter firefly.

 I found a twice-stabbed ladybeetle in almost this same spot on this tree about a week ago (when the temperature was below freezing). I wonder if this is the same one.

I didn't do a blog post yesterday because I didn't exactly do a bug walk. I didn't have a lot of time free for it, so I walked around parts of the backyard when I got home at one point in the morning, and said if I found any bugs at all I would go inside for my camera. I didn't find any bugs. So... no pictures, no blog.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Spiderling

Tiny spiders are definitely in this time of year.