Walking on Water

I went for a walk today on a paved bike path along a river. There was an area where there was a marsh on one side of the trail, and a pond on the other, and the water from the pond was draining into the marsh by crossing the trail. What that means is that the trail was flooded, and the grassy area on either side was wet and soggy, and there was no way to continue on the trail without crossing water, or mud, or both. We tried to contrive a bridge in one spot, but ultimately I ended up with wet shoes and socks, which was terribly unpleasant, but there was something I wanted to see further along the trail, so I didn't want to be turned back before my goal. So... I ended up with wet feet, uncomfortable, but I saw a nice view, and am looking forward to a day in the spring when I can ride my bike there. There is a whiff of irony in what happened to me on this walk when I think about what I saw on my bug walk today. I thought that today would be a great day to find bugs in my backyard, because it was sunny, and it has been warmish the last 2 days (50s yesterday and overnight, albeit rainy, and upper 40s while I was on my bug walk), and because I saw things flying around through the windows before I went out, but I was wrong. The winter firefly I have been seeing for the last several weeks wasn't even there anymore. I found very little, and it was mostly what I have been finding all along. But here are some pictures anyway, because I did see two interesting little–very little–things:

 There were a few springtails on a tiny puddle on a rock, which is nothing new...

 They were doing that thing they do where they are floating around on the surface of the water, and they clump together for a second and then shove away from each other. It's hard to photograph, but fun to watch.

Here's the new thing. In one of their little shoving matches, one of the springtails got knocked onto its side, exposing to my eye for the first time its springs.

 That V-shaped thing there is usually tucked up underneath the springtail's body, and that is what lets it spring. It uses that as a sort of lever to jump; if you picture in your mind what would happen if this springtail was not on its side here, that tail was tucked under it, and then it extended it the way it is in this picture... Boing!

 Here's the other very little, interesting thing.

 A mite, also on the surface of the water. And this is where my little wet-shoes incident comes into play. While I have to either find a way around the water or get wet, all of these tiny creatures–the springtails and the mite–just walk right on top of it with no trouble at all. Let's hear it for surface tension.

 Next to a springtail to give you a sense of size (which only works if you know how tiny the springtail is. Let me just say that I could not see the mite with the unaided eye).

 They had a bit of an interaction, but I don't know what it was all about.

I went to the candy striped leaf hoppers' favorite tree to see if there were any out today, given the weather conditions, and I found a couple, one of which allowed me (sort of) to get a picture:

 In case you are wondering, I am working on getting calendars done, and I know I am waaaaay too late on this project this year, because if you want one, you're going to miss the first couple of weeks of 2019, but I have just not had the time to work on it–it's a very time-consuming process! I am hoping to get them done tomorrow...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Whenever I empty the rain gauge I check underneath to see if there are any spiders under there (or insects) because in past winters it has been a popular sheltering spot. Lately I have not found any, but there was one there today:

Seasonal Variety

First, I just want to say that winter is confusing:

 This is in the front yard.

 This is in the backyard. (Also confusing: why is front yard two words, but backyard one word?). We had a touch of snow the other day (why I did not do a bug walk that day), and in the sunnier parts of the yard it has melted, but in much of the backyard it has stuck around. I don't know what kind of animal footprint this is.

Also in the backyard, some animal did some digging, and the daffodils under the leaf litter have sprouted already.

I haven't blogged in a couple of days because it has been cold, so most of the last few days I haven't done a bug walk. I did do one a few days ago that I didn't blog about because all I found was a bunch of springtails, and it seemed too boring to post about just that. There may have been other things around in the last couple of days, but I didn't think there would be, and I didn't want to spend the time on it when there were other things to do. I wasn't going to do a bug walk today, either, because the temperature was only in the high 30s around noon, but I had to go to an appointment, and when I got back I went to get the mail from the mailbox, and happened to see a tiny beetle scurrying across one of the stone steps that lead up to the house. It scooted under a leaf at the edge of the step, and though I didn't think I would be able to find the beetle again (I didn't), that indicated to me that perhaps there would be interesting things to see in the backyard today, so, I went in and got my camera.

Ugh, this is a boring explanation. Anyway, the stone steps have a lot of leaves on them, and I thought I should remove them because wet leaves on stairs are a dangerous thing, although you know that I am an advocate for letting leaf litter lie. Removing it just demonstrated the benefits of leaf litter to insects in winter, because there was quite a bit of life going on under the soggy leaves.

As soon as I moved the leaves away I saw springtails, lots of them, most of which immediately sprung away. But not all:

 I saw two species, this one...

 ... and this one.

 Here they are together...

And then there's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This looks like a springtail, but it is MUCH bigger, at least 3 times as long as others that look like this. So I don't know if that's what it is.

 I also found this stinkbug. It looks dead, but its legs moved, so I think it was just cold. I moved it back under some leaves, since that is obviously the place it wants to spend the winter. It got me thinking that if I wanted to find bugs every day I could look under the leaf litter in other spots, but the whole point for the insects is to shelter under there, and I don't want to reduce their chances of survival, so I am not going to do that. But for safety reasons I had to disturb anything living under the leaf litter on the front steps.

 There were a few ants under there, too.

Meanwhile, in the backyard:

This stonefly was active, running up the trunk of a tree.

This winter firefly is still in the same place it has been for weeks, though every few days it changes position.

I found a springtail in the backyard, too, on some snow (although this is not the kind that is a called a snowflea).

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Also under the leaf litter on the front steps. I am not sure if it is a mite, or a really tiny spider.

Solstice Solace

Happy First Day of Winter!

Remember yesterday when I said that you'd never mistake a winter day for summer? Well, you may very well mistake it for spring:

 There's all kinds of irony here. This wasn't even the high temperature today. It also rained all day (this would have been about a foot of snow if it had been colder... much colder), so I could not do a bug walk. I had to turn on the porch light to attract bugs, and until late in the evening that didn't even work.

There was not much variety on the porch tonight, but there were huge numbers of insects. More on that in a minute...

 Stonefly on the porch light

There had to be at least a thousand springtails on the porch tonight. For the last few days they have been hard to find, and then you get a warm, rainy day, turn on the porch light, and they appear.

 Sow bug

 Winter crane fly

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This scampered across the rug in the living room this afternoon. It is pictured here inside the bug vacuum before I released it outside.

Seasons Change

This was the last day of autumn, and it felt a little bit like spring. Funny thing about seasons–winter and summer are opposites, but spring and fall are pretty much the same, just traveling in different directions. I have noticed a lot lately that there are days when it seems like springtime. The temperatures are the same, it looks the same (the after the leaves/before the leaves part of each season), and when the birds are singing... it could be March instead of December. This is all enhanced by the squishiness of the ground from all the rain we have had. And every time this has happened lately, I get this feeling like we skipped winter and everything is going to be lovely again soon... If only. We still have the bitterness to get through. One thing's for sure–there aren't any winter days that I could mistake for summer.

So, on this last day of astronomical autumn, this mild day that is the calm before a storm, there were not many bugs to be seen. In fact, the lack of bugs is why I haven't posted in a couple of days. I did my bug walks, but all I found were a couple of springtails (In fact, yesterday I found ONE springtail, and one of those nymphs in the moss. That's it). And that's pretty much the case today, but I did find one thing today (not an insect) that rather surprised me (when it probably shouldn't have):

 Slug. Ugh. After seeing a couple of baby slugs earlier this week this should probably not have been a surprise, but it was. Even though the high today was in the mid-40s I would have thought that the overnight lows in the 20s all week would not be slug-friendly. And yet, there it was, crawling around atop the leaf litter.

Yesterday I was only able to find one of those little nymphs in the moss that I saw so many of the other day. Today there were quite a lot more:

 I found one small swarm of insects, which I assume were winter crane flies, but I didn't manage to get a look at them when they landed, so I can't be sure.

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Seek and Ye Shall Find... If You're Primed

Back on the subject of being mentally primed to find bugs, I found a good example of that today. First, look at this picture:

 Bear in mind that you already know there is a bug in this picture, because I am telling you it is there. Imagine, instead, that you were walking around outside, it was overcast, you were cold and wanted to be done with your search, and you walked by this twig. Even if you happened to glance at the twig, would you notice the insect on it?

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I have been trying to figure out what this is, and have considered tree louse and aphid, but I am not sure either way.

Other Bugs:

 Gnat

 Here's another spotting test. Can you see any of the tiny nymphs that were Backyard Bug of the Day yesterday?

 

 I am not convinced that this is a springtail nymph...

 Cranefly

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