It's Winter Now

 Hello. I know, it's been a while, and I am a negligent bug blogger. I haven't been doing bug walks lately, or even woods walks because I am having a problem with my knee, and the hills and uneven terrain have been painful for me to walk on. It's making me sad, and I miss my woods. But I do enjoy seeing a few bugs when I go out in my backyard, and have even tried to get pictures a few times, but nothing worth posting. It's a wonderfully smug reminder that in spite of the bug haters' glee that bugs all die when it freezes there are still bugs out there in the chilly weather, and on the warmer days, particularly the sunnier ones, they are happy to make themselves seen. Flies aren't exactly my favorite bugs, but I do like seeing them basking in the apricity* on the side of my house. It's officially winter now, and all that means is that it's time for winter bugs. Just kidding, the bugs don't care about when the solstice is. They do what they please.

I have been reflecting on some sad bug subjects, though. In going through my pictures from this year it is noticeable how few bugs I found. I don't think it's just because I didn't do a bug walk most days, because I did spend time outside every day, and I am always looking for bugs, so the fact that I saw so few caterpillars this year is concerning. I didn't see even a single white marked tussock moth caterpillar, and usually I see them all over in the early fall, sometimes a dozen or so on a single tree trunk. And usually when we bring a Christmas tree into the house we find bugs in the days after that came in with the tree, and this year I didn't see a single insect stowaway after we got our trees (yes, trees, we have two). Last year I thought that the paucity of insects might be due to the drought, but that is certainly not the reason this year. This year there weren't any days (or evenings, rather) when there were swarms of dragonflies; those I didn't even have to do bug walks to see, I used to see them through the skylights, zipping around, eating swarms of something too small for me to see at that height. I don't know if there just weren't a lot of dragonflies (though I did see very few this year), or no swarms of whatever they would eat in those feeding frenzies. (There were PLENTY of mosquitoes this year, thanks to all that rain). It all worries me. I wish there was something I could do about it, but I am don't know what else I can do, since I already have a 35+ acre bug sanctuary. 

Anyway, I don't have a picture for this post (although I did want to wait until I was able to get a good picture to make this post, but I am running out of time for... well, you're about to find out...), and I do have a shameless reason for posting it: to promote my calendars for sale. Since I didn't do any calendars last year I used pictures from 2020 and 2021 for the calendars (I would not have had enough from this year alone). Some are specific, like the beetles one, and others are more general. I found so many cool spiders in the last two years that I have two spider calendars. Here are the links [Edit: I have decided to add pictures from each calendar, so you have bugs to look at in this post, and you know what to look forward to]:

Beetles! calendar 

 

Stingers! This one is bees and wasps.

  

Insects!

  

 Insects of the Month

 

Dragonflies 

 

Butterflies and Moths

Caterpillars (Almost all of these are pictures I took in 2020, before the caterpillar collapse)

 

Amazing Arachnids

Ooh, a Spider! Calendar 

 

If you still like to use a calendar that you can hang on your wall, with cool pictures on it, instead of just a tiny electronic one on your phone, and you like insects and/or spiders, check them out. There's always a coupon code on the site, so look for that, too [Edit: right now, on January 5, 2022, they are 50% off, with coupon code ZNEWYEAR2022. I don't know how long that's good for, but once it's done, you can usually find some other code on the site. And you can start the calendars in any month of the year].

Here's to a happy and buggy new year for us all.

*Apricity: The warmth of the winter sunshine.

November Sunshine

 Here we are, almost 2/3 of the way through November, and after a couple of weeks with freezing nights...

I have been diligently covering my few late-season chrysanthemum plants, so there are a few blooms, but I have not been seeing bugs on them most days. That's probably because of the fact that I don't usually get around to uncovering them until the middle of the afternoon. But last night was much warmer, so I didn't cover the plants, so they were unencumbered all day, and when I went out to get the mail I discovered that they had, indeed attracted some pollinators. (There have been a couple of days, actually, when there were bugs and spiders on these, but it was too windy for photography). I don't know if you can tell here, but there are two bees on the flower in front, and one on the right in the back...

The the third flower got a visitor, a hover fly.

The other plant has one flower on it, and it was turned away from the sun, but it had a visitor, too. And isn't the dreamy quality of November sunlight enchanting?

There were other insects flying around today, and a few crickets to be heard. Meteorological winter may be here soon, but insects don't regulate their lives by calendars.

Last Flower

 We had a one night reprieve from the first frost, but I covered my plants last night just in case. Today I still had the one flower blooming, and...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Hover fly. This is probably going to be the only chrysanthemum bloom this year, and this could be the only insect that feeds on it. It was still there when I covered the plant again as evening was setting in, so I guess it will be spending the night there. I hope it lives to hover another day.

I did hear a few crickets chirping forlornly, there were still March flies swarming, and I saw a spider in the woods. That's it for arthropods today. 

I like winter, I decided that a few years ago. But I am not ready for it.

Racing the Frost

The goldenrod and the asters have gone to seed. For pollinators whose life cycle extends to the first frost these are lean times. I haven't seen a bee in over a week; there was one inside one of the fall-blooming crocus growing in a planter on my front porch, that I startled and scared away, poor thing. I am happy that there are flowers blooming there, but it's not much. I am surprised I have not seen more bees and other pollinators there (although, it was raining most of last week). I have been waiting quite impatiently for some other flowers to bloom...

Three years ago I planted some late-blooming, perennial chrysanthemums, and I think this year they are so late-blooming that it is too late for the pollinators. This one has been slowly, slowly, slowly opening, and today it has finally bloomed. I was expecting to see a bee or hoverfly, or some other insect on it, but nothing at all. Alas. And to add to the futility of it all, I think we are going to have our first frost this week, and the plants are going to die before they get to really bloom in full. [Edit on Tuesday, November 2: We are forecast to have our first frost tonight. I got only TWO DAYS of blooming from this plant, which doesn't even have any other buds. Hmph.]

Fungus Update:

The mushroom with the weird goop on it had no goop today, and was taller than yesterday. There were a few ants left when we went by at the beginning of our walk (before dark)...

... and an earwig on it when I went by the second time (after dark).

The other mushroom had a couple of these flies on it again.
 

Backyard Bug of the Day:

March fly. Male.

There was a swarm of them over the front porch when I went out to get the mail:

In case you have ever wondered what a March fly looks like in flight.

It is the males who do this aerial dance.

I found more of them on my walk in the woods. I didn't see any swarming, and there weren't any plants that had a lot of them, like I saw the other day, but I did see individuals on leaves all along my walk. They were all male, too. This is the second year in a row that I have only been able to find male March flies. Usually I will find females basking on leaves while the males dance together, which I think is how they look around for a mate. Anyway, it would be easier for me to show you the difference between the male and female if I had pictures of both, but the males have big heads that are all eyes. The females have much smaller heads. I assume this has something to do with the fact that the females just sit around waiting for a mate, while the men actually go flying around trying to spot one. The males have to be able to see better, both to find a mate, and to avoid predators while they are flying. Don't take any of that as fact, though, because I am just guessing the reason for the observable morphology and behavior.

It was a beautiful day in the woods today:

Today was sunny (and chilly!), and a lot of the trees have already dropped all of their leaves, so a lot more sun filters through into the woods, but there are many trees that are still green, and others with colorful leaves, so the sense of seclusion remains, and everything is bright. Honestly, though, there were not as many bugs as I thought there would be, after my recent walks. I don't know if it's because it was daytime, and I have mostly been seeing bugs at night, or because it was only in the 50s today, or because it was cold last night.

Other Bugs:

When I went out today I checked the tree where I saw so many candy striped leaf hoppers last night, and to my surprised there was only one leaf left on the tree. There was one leaf hopper on the leaf. This is not that leaf; I saw a couple of them in the woods, too.

I think this is an ailanthus webworm caterpillar in the process of becoming a pupa.

This moth was in the exact same spot on this tree yesterday.

Little moths on tree trunks was a theme today:

Brown marmorated stinkbug. Invasive, sadly.

I don't know what this is, but I think maybe some kind of tree louse?

I am not sure if this is the same thing:

Bristletails:

 

One of the interesting things we found in our woods was a bathtub that had been set up with a pipe that directs water from a spring in the hillside into the tub. From what we figured out, which was then confirmed by a neighbor, it was put there as a water trough for animals (there used to be cows there), and it still is full of water. It was full of slimy, smelly mud as well, from decades worth of rotting leaves, but we shoveled out the muck a few months ago. Right now there are this autumn's leaves and a lot of water, and I looked too see if anything was living in there, and found copepods. I have no idea how they got there, but there they were. I have read that you can find copepods almost anywhere there is water, including puddles after a rain. But it still doesn't explain how they got into the bathtub... oh, wait, duh, they probably flowed in with the water from the pipe. Never mind me...

There were springtails there, too:

They are also fans of puddles, but instead of swimming in them they walk on top of them.

The swarm of beech aphids has dwindled, but there are still some tight clusters on the branch:

They don't seem to have much concern for personal space.

Here a couple are secreting honeydew.

Wasp

Another wasp, a tiny one on a crocus petal

Crane fly, also on a crocus petal

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I used to find these spiders on a particular tree in my backyard every year around this time, so regularly that I have mentally named them autumn spiders. The last few years they have not been on that tree, but lately I have been finding them on a tree in the woods:

I think this is a female. It is much smaller than you might think from this picture.

Harvestman on the veiled lady mushroom.