Here's A Bug In Your Eye!

Here's how my bug walk went today: A gnat flew into my eye. A butterfly landed right in front of me and then flew away before I could take a picture of it. I almost stepped on a snake, and then didn't get a picture of it because it zoomed before I could even get the camera pointed at it. I tried to take a picture of a jumping spider and it jumped on my camera. Two flies mating landed on my shirt, and that's just an impossible location for taking a picture. I have been waiting for my flowering crab apple tree to bloom, but today I noticed that while it has a lot of leaves, it has no flower buds and so it isn't going to bloom this year. I saw a lot of bugs, but only got pictures of a few of them.

Still, I at least got to see all of that stuff. You're the ones who aren't going to get a chance to see them. I am extremely grateful given the global situation that I can spend so much time outside. Speaking of which, yesterday we had a storm with heavy winds and torrential rain (almost 2.5 inches). I went outside briefly; I don't mind getting rained on, but I do worry when it's severely windy–the weather forecast described it as storm-toppling winds, and said there would be gusts near hurricane strength. I don't know if we had 63 mph winds, but it's not the kind of weather to be outside near trees. It is also not the kind of weather for taking out a camera, and naturally I assumed there wouldn't be any bugs outside anyway. But I can see the rock garden through the window by the couch, and in spite of the pounding rain there were bumblebees in the rock garden yesterday. I applaud their determination. It is impressive.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 A pair of turkeys wandered through the backyard this morning. Later, when we went for our walk in the woods we saw more of them.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Spring azure butterfly. The dorsal side of its wings is a pretty, light blue, but I only get to see that when it's flying.

I actually saw two butterflies today!

Mourning Cloak butterfly. This is the one that landed right in front of me and then flew away before I could get a picture. I broke my Don't Chase the Butterflies rule, and got a couple of pictures that are not very good shots of the butterfly, but are good at showing how well it blends in with the leaf litter.

 Most years I see only one mourning cloak, around the middle of March. I thought maybe I wouldn't see one this year because it's the middle of April. Usually I see the first one at a time when it seems much too cold to see a butterfly. One would show up in the rock garden and then fly down the driveway and away. It was kind of funny how that exact scenario played out every year. This one flew up the driveway. It's a world gone mad.

Other Bugs:

 Click beetle

 Moth

 Bee

Winter firefly:

 

 Candy striped leaf hopper

Found inside a rotting log:

 

 Neither of these are insects, but they are arthropods.

Compare this to the beetle larva I found the other day, specifically the legs. This one has many, all along its body, the beetle larva had the usual six of insects, on the front segments.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Really tiny spider...

 ... with a tinier parasite.

 This spider lives in the package bin.

Its web stretches across the opening, which is a terrible place for a web when we get a package delivered in there. It's an interesting web, not an orb web, but almost like a really loosely woven, random fabric.