Among my other non-bug related interests is reading. I love to read, as you may have guessed from the occasional literary references in this blog. One thing that happens when you read a lot is that you see the patterns of stories; there are themes and plots that recur in a lot of tales. Yesterday and today the same thing happened to me on my bug walks, and I was thinking today that it's like I am in a fairy tale, one about some kind of quest, and there were magical enchantments that tried to keep me from continuing on to find my goal. All of which is to say that both yesterday and today it started to rain during my bug walk, and both days it happened when I reached about the same point. Like there was some sort of enchantment trying to keep me from seeing something on the other side of the backyard. Yesterday I gave up and went in the house, even though I hadn't even gotten any pictures (except a couple of blurry ones of a spider, which is why there was no blog yesterday). Today I pushed on, holding my camera under my sweatshirt. It started to rain harder, so I had to head back to the house, but on the way there, the rain stopped, so I turned around to continue the walk. So it started to rain again. Something really didn't want me to see that side of the backyard. I persevered, though, and that is where I found today's Backyard Bug of the Day:
I think this is some kind of wasp. It was definitely a surprise to see this walking up the trunk of a tree on an overcast, rainy, mid-40s day in late November.
The puddle pond was bigger today than it has been on any day the last couple of weeks. The pattern now is for it to rain pretty heavily every couple of days, and the pond will last a day or two, and then seep into the ground. So, one day there's a pond, the next day it's gone, and then the next day it comes back. Yesterday there was no pond, and today there was a bigger one that before. Usually this pond only appears in the spring (I usually refer to it as my vernal pond) as snow is melting and the ground is still pretty frozen. The ground is not frozen now, but it must be really saturated for this puddle to be appearing today after only an inch and a half of rain. Much of the backyard was pretty squishy. But we have had more than twice the normal amount of rain so far this month, and we have more than a foot extra for the year so far. Meanwhile, the springtails are out in great numbers, drifting on the surface of the pond in groups:
And there's another little thing there, too, which could be a very young snowflea, but I can't really tell. Also, there are two groups of springtails in this picture; the blur toward the top is one, too.
It could be something else, but I don't know what.
A couple of tiny ones were seen, too.
See the other group in the upper left?
Cocoon on the side of the house
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