Looking Closer

Today's life lesson from the backyard is to look more closely, because things might not be what they seem. Sometimes when I am doing my bug walk, I check to see what bugs are around, even if I don't take their pictures, or post them. I just want to know what's out there, but as I have mentioned before, I don't want to post pictures of the same things every day. So, I check the two rocks where the snow fleas congregate to see if the are there every day, but I don't post pictures of them every day. Today there weren't any on the rock on the front walk, and there were some, but not many, on their other favorite rock. I didn't take pictures of them on the rock, I just looked at them, and then I happened to spot something else:

 I thought that brown thing was a pine needle, but I decided to look closer. I often think something is nothing much, and then decide to look closer and it is really something very interesting, and that compels me to keep doing it.

And that is how I found today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 So, I looked closer, and I thought it was a tiny caterpillar. Not something I used to expect in February, but I have gotten past having expectations like that, so I figured that the warmer weather (it was almost 50ºF today) must have woken up the tiny caterpillar and it went on walkabout.

 Looking even closer, I thought there was something weird about its head, but it was really small, and hard to see well, so I just figured I wasn't seeing it well. And I walked away, looking for more bugs.

For some reason, though, I went back to look at it again, and this time I got a better look a its head:

 That's when I realized it was not a caterpillar, but a beetle larva. And it looked like it had something in its mouth (caught in its mandibles might be a more accurate description. Or not. I am still no expert on insect anatomy). I am sure it goes without saying that I have no idea what kind of beetle this is.

 What is it that is all over this rock lately? Snow fleas! And what is my Law of Nature? If there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it. And so, all of those snow fleas wandering around on this rock are prey for a beetle larva. Also, if you look at its body, near the head end you can see kind of dark shadowyness inside? I realized from flipping back and forth between pictures that that is probably the snow fleas it has eaten; it's kind of translucent so having eaten something darkly colored, what it has eaten is visible through its body.

 

 A look at the beetle face minus prey.

Oh, and did someone say something about mandibles?

 I saw it eating at least three snow fleas.

 That one got away...

Aside from the usual insects, I saw this crawling on the side of the house:

Western conifer seed bug. I don't know if it's the same one I released outside the other day. It could be, it could not be. It might just have woken from its winter stupor because of the warm weather and ventured out.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee

I only put birdseed in my bird feeder when it snows. I know there are plenty of things for the birds to eat in my backyard otherwise–I see them feeding on the ground, in the trees, leftover flower seeds–but since a lot of stuff is covered when it snows, I feed them then. Today when I was outside looking for bugs, and standing near the feeder, this chickadee flew to a tree near me and called to me: "Chick-a-dee-dee-dee":

I like to think it was saying, "Thank you for the bird seed!" but I suspect it was saying, "Get away, I want to eat now!"

And that's all for today.

Snow, Snow Flowers, and Snow Insects

We had a little bit of snow today, so now we have...

 Snow fleas and snow. But not snow fleas ON snow. I have seen that before, but never in my backyard. For some reason the snow fleas in my backyard stick to rocks and trees. There were more of them today than I have even seen in my backyard before.

The temperature was in the low 40s(F), so a bit above freezing.

 The snow fleas in my backyard have two hangouts this year, one rock on the front stairs, and one in the woods.

 

Both spots had greater numbers of snow fleas today than they have had other days this winter. This is the rock out front...

 ... and this is the one in the woods:

 This one has some black splotches on it that I think are some kind of lichen. You'll have to look closely to see which black specks are which, lichen or snow fleas. A reminder, by the way, that snow fleas are not fleas, they are a species of springtail. They won't bite you or harm you in any way.

 

 That rock also had another species of springtail. This one is much bigger, but still a tiny insect.

And, for good measure, one more species of springtail, actually on snow, but not a snow flea. I didn't get closer to this one, it was very springy.

The snowdrops survived being buried in snow and sleet yesterday:

There were a few little things flying around today, too, but I didn't get a close enough look at them to see what they were.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Winter In A Flower Pot

My bug walk this afternoon was not noteworthy, and featured very few insects. Those few that I saw were the same things I see any day I go out looking for bugs these days, which is not surprising. It's also not very interesting. I got one good picture of a snow flea:

 

 I'm posting this because all of the other snow flea pictures I have posted lately were horrible. I am not going to bother with the other pictures from my bug walk, and am just going to go on to the more interesting insect encounter of the day...

I was sitting on the couch this evening, working on my computer, when I heard a loud buzzing behind me. I looked and saw a largish insect bopping around the lights on the ceiling. I watched it until it landed on the bookshelf:

 Western conifer seed bug. They like to come inside the house for the winter, where it's nice and warm. It is a Hemiptera, or true bug, and you can see its proboscis, the tube through which it feeds.

 

 I prefer for them to spend the winter outside. I used to think if I found bugs inside in the winter and moved them outside that they would freeze to death, but now I am pretty sure they just find somewhere to hunker down until spring, and they are better off hibernating or going into diapause than starving inside my house where they won't find their natural food source. So, I caught the bug and brought it out onto the porch, where I put it in a flower pot that is out there. The flower pot has some dried leaves in it, and immediately the bug crawled under one. I moved the leaf to try to get a picture of it, and the bug started crawling toward another hiding spot...

To be continued in Arachnid Appreciation:
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As I continued trying to take pictures of it I realized that there was something else that had been sheltering under that leaf. Can you see it?

 The seed bug walked right over the spider.

 I have mentioned before that there are many insects (and other animals) that shelter in leaf litter over the winter. I didn't realize that the handful of leaves in a flower pot was enough leaf litter for them. I did recover the spider with a leaf after I took the pictures. The seed bug chose a different leaf to shelter under.

Back To My Usual Tricks

You know what I haven't much lately? Post a Backyard Bug of the Day. Because I see the same bugs every day, and have been seeing those same bugs for a couple of months, I haven't really had a good bug to choose for BBotD. The point of that is to have a different bug every day. Granted, I rarely have the opportunity to post something really new anymore, but I do still try to choose a particular species only once a year. But now that I am blogging in the winter, I am not really sure where a year begins and ends, bug-wise? Do I go by calendar year? Seasons? I don't know. But there are only a handful of species that I see nowadays, so I haven't made anything BBotD for a while.

But today I have one for you. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of plant bug. Definitely not what I have been seeing lately.

It turns out that I didn't have to wait very long for the snow drops to bloom:

Today started out rainy, but the sun came out, and it was a mild day, so a good day for winter fireflies to bask on their favorite tree:

 I have been checking this rock lately for snow fleas, because I found them there last year, and finally today they were there.

 Only one candy striped leaf hopper came out today.

 Today was just the kind of weather for bugs who like dampness and don't like the cold, like this sow bug.

I've been on the lookout for winter ants with the warmer weather this week, and finally found one.

The cold is coming back tomorrow. In fact, I can hear it coming now, carried in by a gale.

Recommending Love

I am so glad I love spiders now. I used to hate them, and fear them, but now, I think they are fascinating and beautiful, and it's feels so much nicer to love them than to hate them. Today I was having one of those days where nothing goes the way you want it to, and I was frustrated and annoyed. I went outside to do my bug walk, frustrated and annoyed that it was so dark and cloudy, figuring I wouldn't find anything today, and I found a spider, and it made me happy. I felt happy because I had found a spider, and when I thought about that, I felt happy that a spider could make me happy. I used to feel repulsed when I saw a spider, and depending on the circumstances, afraid. Most of the time I would kill it, unless it was a huge spider, and then I would be too afraid of it to kill it, so I would have to get someone else to do it. I would even kill spiders if I saw them outside, and there was no call for that, they weren't hurting me, they were just living their spider lives, keeping insect populations under control, so what was the point in squishing them? There was no good reason for that hate and fear, nothing that spiders had ever done to me to earn my malice toward them. What, because they're creepy, and have eight legs? They might bite me, and then I'll die? Well, for the most part they can't kill me, but I didn't know that. I really didn't even know much about them. But that is often the way of hate and fear; we don't have a very good reason for it, and we may not even know very much about the subject of our hate. But I learned about spiders, and I learned not to hate them and (mostly) not to fear them. I learned to admire them, and I learned to be happy when I find out while I am outside looking for bugs. And it's so much better to look at something and feel love and happiness instead of fear and hatred. I know it's not just a matter of deciding not to hate anymore, though it would be nice to be able to do that. But maybe it is a matter of deciding to know more about things, and to be mindful of why we feel what we do. Because maybe there is no reason for our hatred after all.

Don't worry, the spiders are still at the end of this post.

The deep freeze last week seems to have killed the early-sprouting snowdrops before they could bloom, which made me very sad, but new ones have emerged, and if we don't have another deep freeze soon, may actually get a chance to bloom!

 

It might be weird to have flowers instead of snow in February, but they are snowdrops.

I didn't see a great variety of bugs today, hardly any, but I did see a LOT of one kind of insect:

 This is just the kind of weather for seeing springtails, and they were everywhere today.

 

 There's two kinds here, the round ones and a couple of snow fleas.

 I saw one winter firefly, and that was it for insects today.

 However, as you know I did spend some time enjoying some Arachnid Appreciation:
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Grumpy

It's unusual for me to not enjoy my bug walk, but today I spent most of it not finding any bugs while listening to construction noises from somewhere nearby, and it put a damper on my enjoyment. Construction noises are one of my least favorite things. I found some bugs right at the beginning, and I found some bugs right before I went into the house, and the rest of the time I was mostly just grinding my teeth at the noise. The caterpillar that had been hanging out on the picnic table was gone. It was about twenty degrees (F) cooler than yesterday (but still about ten degrees above normal), and the number of bugs to be seen was a pretty good reflection of that drop.

Yesterday I saw only one winter firefly, but today on their favorite tree there were a few crawling around:

After that... nothing. Until I dragged the trash can up from the street and saw that there were several stone flies zooming around on top of it:

They were not the only insects on the trash can:

Cockroach nymph. Don't panic, I am pretty sure this is one of those woods and outdoors cockroaches. The trash can is a not a surprising place to find it, though–they are decomposers.

And on the garden hose, a midge.

As I ponder my disappointment, though, I must remind myself that it is February. I wouldn't be seeing all of this if the ground was covered with snow. Well, maybe the winter fireflies.