Spreading Wings, Taking Flight

I didn't really expect today to be a buggy day, but since I saw bugs fly past the skylight while I was staring upward during my physical therapy exercises I knew that at least some tiny, winged things were active. Time constraints didn't allow me to to a full bug walk, but I found enough to consider it worthwhile.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Click beetle. This is not a view I often get to photograph. They frequently fly away as I am trying to take their picture, but I rarely get this shot in time.

 And I got it twice today.

 Normal view.

 There were bumblebees in the rock garden again (also where the click beetle was found).

 And for some reason lots of little flies on the front walk.

 You can't see an insect here, but those are galls, growths produced by a plant when an insect has lain an egg inside. The egg hatches and the larva grows inside the gall, feeding and then going through metamorphosis, at which point it will emerge. I don't know if that hole is from the insect (a gall wasp?) emerged–gall wasps, if that's what it was, are tiny–or some predator, also tiny, boring its way in for a meal. I just noticed today that there are a lot of galls on this bush, and I can't believe I never noticed before.

 Only two springtails floating in the plastic cup in the compost pile.

 Candy striped leaf hopper on daffodil, where it was not alone...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Good thing for the leaf hopper, if not the spider, that the predator cannot see this potential prey.

The arachnid I DON'T appreciate: a tick. We've been encountering a lot of them in the woods lately. This one was on a plant where I often find them in front of the house. Today I decided that since people walk by there, and it is a frequent tick hangout, to break off the plant stems, so it will no longer be a popular tick hunting spot. By which I mean a spot where ticks hunt.

Bugs Through the Window Glass

Hours before I set foot outside today I knew what insect would become Backyard Bug of the Day. The rock garden has become a pollinator's feast:

 I sat by a window overlooking this floral bonanza for about two hours, working at my computer, and from inside the house I could tell what I would be choosing for Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Bumblebee

 There were a few of them bopping along among the creeping myrtle, and occasionally flying up to check out their reflection in the window.

There were a few other bees around, smaller species, but I wasn't fast enough to photograph them.

I took too long in getting outside today, and I think I probably missed a lot of good bugs. It was 65ºF out today, and sunny, and I think if I had been out before the sun began to sink, I'd have seen more. Other Bugs:

 Winter fireflies, propagating the species

 There were candy striped leaf hoppers on their favorite tree today, but I saw a few that were active, flying around, and clearly one flew all the way across the backyard, because I found one on a daffodil.

 I threw a big party about a year and a half ago, and not wanting to contribute too much to the destruction of the planet, I bought some plastic cups that were supposedly plant-based and compostable. They have been in my compost pile ever since, and have not broken down. In order to keep mosquitoes from breeding in them, I try to keep them upside down so they don't collect water. Today, though, I found one about half full of water, with this raft of springtails floating on the surface.

I found this caterpillar during my daily walk in the woods. The background is my husband's work glove, because I could not get my cellphone to focus on the caterpillar, being as small as it is.

Lots of spiders again today. Arachnid Appreciation:
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Unwanted Thoughts

I've mused a lot in my backyard this week, but everything always comes back to the pandemic we are currently under attack from, and I don't want to write about that, so I won't. Just appreciate that it's spring, and nature is waking up:

 

It's been a surprisingly unbuggy week for me. Not surprising that I didn't see any bugs on the day that it snowed all afternoon, but I expected more on some of the other days. I see a lot in the woods, but I don't have my camera with me then. I saw my first bumblebee of the season in the woods–and then saw one the next day in the rock garden, but I didn't have my camera to hand, and it zoomed away immediately anyway. Today, however, I did I a nice, long bug walk, and even though the temperature had not yet reached its lovely, springy peak of 60ºF yet when I was out with my camera, there were a lot of insects around, representing a plethora of orders.

Because it's where the Backyard Bug of the Day is classified, let's begin with Coleoptera, aka beetles. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 There were a couple of these on a tree trunk. I still don't know what kind of beetle these are, and I am not going to look it up. I don't want to know, because I know their name won't do them justice.

Other Beetles:

 Winter firefly. It is shocking and worrying to me how few of these I have seen this year. There is a particular tree where there are usually dozens on the trunk on days like today, and this year there are none. I spotted two today, on different trees.

 Weevil

 So many insects today that I could get two in one picture, the weevil, and our next Order for today, Hymenoptera. Some kind of wasp, possibly a sawfly (which is a wasp, not a fly).

 I think this is an ichneumon wasp of some kind.

 Also in the order Hymenoptera: ants.

As for Hemiptera:

 On the candy striped leaf hoppers' favorite tree, a candy striped leaf hopper and a sharp shooter.

Diptera:

 I think this is a bottle fly.

 I am not sure if these are flies. There were a lot of them on the compost pile, sitting on the detritus there and beating their wings.

I don't know what order springtails are in... Okay, I just looked it up, and there are multiple orders of springtails. I am not going to get more detailed than that, but I did see two different species of springtails today:

 This one is a snowflea.

Lepidoptera:

 I haven't seen a butterfly yet this year, but moths have been around a lot lately.

Orthoptera:

 Greater anglewing katydid eggs

I took a walk in the woods while it was snowing the other day. It snowed all afternoon, but the snow didn't stick, because the ground was too warm, but it did stick on the many, many little spiderwebs throughout the forest. I didn't see any spiders that day, but it was obvious that there are a lot of them out and active lately, because there were a lot of webs. Today I saw a lot of spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:
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Welcome, Pollinator!

My bug walk today was curtailed by rain. Here's what I got...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Bee. The creeping myrtle is pretty much in full bloom, but I have not been seeing pollinators among the flowers. I think maybe the flowers bloomed too early, and the pollinators had not come out yet. Today I did finally see a bee in the rock garden.

 It's been a strange week, for a lot of reasons. I have done bug walks on other days, but I only found the things I have been posting for weeks, so I didn't feel it was worth posting them again. Actually, a couple of days ago I saw several photo-worthy insects as I set off on my daily woodlands walk, but I didn't have my camera with me. I figured, though, that when I got back from my walk I would be able to do a bug walk and find a lot of bugs. This turned out not to be the case. I didn't find anything at all on my bug walk. And so it goes. This may not be a daily blog anymore. I think I may only be posting if I find something that I think is interesting enough to post. Fortunately for you, if you have an insatiable need for insect photos, my threshold for interesting is pretty low. This week has run the gamut from snow one night (it didn't stay around, because it turned to rain), to today's high of the mid-60s. Sunshine, snow, and rain. First day of astronomical spring. And I am in self-isolation from the Covid-19 virus.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Life Imitates Literature?

I might have written about this before; I don't know, I have been writing this blog for a pretty long time now, and I can't really remember much of what I have said... Anyway... When I was a kid, a lot of the books I read featured the idea, put forward usually by an adult, or at least the narrator of the story, that spending a lot of time outside in the fresh air makes you hungry and tires you out. I always thought that was strange when I was young. It was mentioned in SO many stories, and yet I spent a great deal of my time outside, in the fresh air, running around, and it never seemed to make me extra-special hungry or tired. The funny thing is, now that I am an adult, I do feel like spending the entire day outside in the fresh air makes you tired, albeit in a good way. Granted, I do a lot of tiring things when I am outside, but still, I understand about the fresh air now. I can't explain it, but I get it. Now, this is not to say that doing my bug walk made me tired, or that it makes me tired on any other day when I do one. But today as I was walking around my backyard, searching in vain for insects, I had an amusing thought, that maybe the bugs were tired from spending all day yesterday out in the fresh air, so they didn't come out today. Yes, I know, it's nonsense, but I am still unable to explain why bugs are so plentiful on one day, and absent the next. It was only a couple of degrees cooler; it was overcast on and off, though. It's always a mystery to me, and probably always will be.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Fly.

Cool eyes.

Yesterday when it was so sunny and lovely, perfect for basking on a tree trunk if you are the right size and have the right type of appendages, I looked all over for winter fireflies and didn't find any. Today I found one:

Not on a tree trunk, though, on the side of the house.

Gnat in a crocus

Beetle. Interesting to see this again, two days in a row. I rarely see these beetles at all.