Aquatic Mystery

 Today we are veering into some unusual territory, and today's Backyard Bug of the Day is something I have never seen before, know nothing about, and I don't even know if it's an arthropod, much less an insect. And it is very, very small. 

Where did I find it? In the small pond. I didn't bring my camera with me on my walk yesterday, even though it was sunny and warm, and I expected to see bugs on my walk. I also expected to have difficulty walking, because the sunshine and warmth turned the snow to slush and the ground to mud. I didn't want to be carrying my camera when I wasn't sure about my footing, as I have explained on other days. I regretted not having it soon enough, but even if I had it, I would still not have been able to take pictures of the amazing things I am about to show you, because I was not about to lie down in the snow to get the shots. So, even though today wasn't as warm, I went out looking for the same creatures I saw yesterday in the small pond, and I brought my camera AND a waterproof picnic blanket. I was really hoping the tiny aquatic life forms would still be there, and to my delight, there they were zipping around under the water near the edge of the small pond (and probably in the middle, and all through the pond. I was only concerned with what I could get close enough to photograph. I spread the blanket at the edge of the pond (which was at least partially iced over two days ago), laid down on my stomach with my camera, and peered through it at Backyard Bug of the Day:

So... what is it? I don't know. But there's more going on here than at first is evident...

I would like to point out that these things were incredibly tiny, and swimming really fast. It was very hard to get pictures with them even in the frame, much less in focus. I have a lot of pictures from today that just turned out to be pictures of plants and bubbles underwater, because the creatures I was trying to photograph were so fast they just zoomed out of the shot. I had very little chance of actually focusing on an individual. However, I could see that there were a few different little things swimming around in there, and knew I would have to wait to look on the computer to get any sense at all of what I was seeing. I have magnified one, and pointed out a couple of others, and at first I thought these were two different species of.. whatever these are. But looking at them now, I think that magnified one is a female with eggs.[Edit: A friend of mine who obviously remembers a great deal more about what she learned in middle school than I do clued me in that these are copepods. A quick internet search confirms that I am probably right about the egg sacs. So, copepods–not insects, but crustaceans, and therefore still arthropods. Technically not qualified to be Backyard Bug of the Day, but you know how I am about the rules here–I make 'em, and I break 'em].

Definitely looks like eggs...

My first assumption about these was that they were larvae of some insect, but if that one above has eggs, then these are adults. Here's one without eggs. I don't know if it's male or female.

In this shot, see if you can spot any others, and note the springtail in the upper left by the bubbles.

Mystery creature(s), springtails...

There were some other tiny things swimming around, too:

These look less like insects. Or at least, a lot more like larvae, but I still have no idea what they are.

 

This is another shot that if you look around you find more than one thing in it.

Fortunately, I have a new tool available to me for checking these out: I got a microscope for my birthday that hooks up to my computer. After my bug walk I took another walk and brought a bottle out to get some pond water to have a look at what was swimming in it:

They have what I think are called flagellates, filamentous tails that whip around to move them. They almost look like tiny clams... These are swimming around in a droplet of water.

I have other video, too, of the first creature up there, also swimming in a droplet of water:

 I took a few screenshots, which are blurry, but you get a decent look at the thing (and I think you can get a little hint of the functioning of its digestive track, if you know what I mean):

These also have flagellates for locomotion.

 And there were some springtails in the water, too:

This is the bigger of the two I caught, and it's miniscule.

As for Other Bugs:

There was a big swarm of tiny somethings dancing about ten feet in the air over the small pond. No doubt about it, the small pond was the place to be today.

I'm not seeing as many stoneflies lately, and now I am finding them on tree trunks again. There's a lot less snow for them to crawl around on.

 

And speaking of bugs on snow, snowfleas have basically disappeared from the snow this week, but today I found them on a rock where I have often found them in other years, on sunny, mild winter days.

One insect that has been noticeably absent this winter has been winter fireflies. Normally I see them on mild, sunny days all winter, but this winter, while not especially cold, has maybe been a little too cold for them. And it hasn't been very sunny in general. I have been keeping an eye out for them, and yesterday I even checked their favorite tree by the driveway, but I didn't find any there. Finally, I spotted two of them on my walk. I didn't post them yesterday, because I had plans to go out with my camera today, and figured I would get better pictures, but today I didn't see any, so I am going to post the pictures I took yesterday with my phone. Since this is not at present a daily blog I am having to change my rule about pictures having to be from the day. So here they are, the long searched-for winter fireflies on a beautiful winter day:

 I've been seeing caddisfly larvae in the stream on occasion, and I spotted some water beetles yesterday, too. In fact, I saw a really small water beetle in the small pond yesterday. With all the snow melting there's water in the ponds, the streams, the pits... water, water everywhere. It's so much nicer than the drought we had last year. We're a little behind on precipitation so far this year; I hope the drought doesn't come back.

The seasonal fluctuations continue to make changes for the skunk cabbage sprout in the stream–now the snow is melted, but its little island is flooded because of all the melting snow, which has raised the water level in the stream. I can't really tell, and I didn't notice at the time, but it looks like there's another sprout in the lower center of the picture, poking out of the leaf debris.

I've got some terrible pictures for Arachnid Appreciation:

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Most of the things I found today were unbelievably small. I saw some mites while taking pictures of the snowfleas, so small that I would not have been able to see them except through the camera lens, and even then I only saw them because they were moving. Unfortunately, I couldn't get better pictures than this, partly because once I lost sight of them I couldn't find them again.

Quick Change

 I forgot I had things to post last night, which is just as well, because it will make for a more interesting post today, as I ignore my own rules for writing this blog (why did I even make rules? The only person they apply to is me, and everyone who knows me knows quite well that I am not a person who is keen on following rules) and post yesterday's pictures with today's for contrast.

Here in New England, the seasons blend together at the edges like different colors of paint on a canvas come together to make a new shade when you glide over them with your paintbrush.

Okay, that was a terrible analogy, but I am writing this with a painting that I finished this week in my peripheral vision. 

Here's what I saw on a muddy island in the stream yesterday:

The first sign of a spring ephemeral!

I think this is skunk cabbage, one of the first things to bloom in the spring. Now, I am not by any means going to say that spring is here, or just around the corner. I am not even to the point yet when I am desperately longing for it, but that might be due to my increased appreciation for winter that has developed over the last few years, particularly this winter as I have had the opportunity to walk in the woods every day. But it is definitely thrilling to have my first sight of springtime growing in the mud. Spring is, after all, my favorite season.

Now, here's the same spot today:

Because it's not spring yet, not even close. I won't even say it's hard to believe that two days ago the temperature was in the 50s, because it's not hard to believe at all. But it may be a while before I catch another glimpse of springtime like that.

As for insects, I have some bad pictures for you:

Yesterday afternoon I saw a water beetle in the stream. A rare daytime sighting. I saw a few crane flies and stoneflies, but not many bugs overall. The air temperature was right around the freezing point, but in the flowing water of the stream there wasn't much ice. I saw a few caddisfly larval cases, too.

Today I saw one insect:

Sorry, I didn't realize it was so blurry when I took this picture of a stonefly crawling on the snow, while it was snowing, with the temperature several degrees below freezing.

Dancing in the Sunshine

 We were supposed to get a severe ice storm today, but the storm that was so devastating to other parts of the country had mellowed out by the time it got here, so instead we got about an inch of rain, which ended in the morning, and ended up with a beautiful day. The temperature was in the 50s, the sun came out, and it probably sounds like a good day for me to take my camera into the woods, but I didn't take it with me on my walk today. I knew that the trails would be slushy and slippery, and I didn't want to be carrying anything (particularly anything fragile and expensive, like a camera) when I knew there was a possibility of ending up sprawled in the slush. I also didn't want anything that might throw off my balance, or keep me from righting myself. So, I left the camera behind, and though there was some skidding, I kept my feet and there were no disasters. There were also, to my great surprise, not many bugs to be seen. Only a couple of stoneflies, and hardly any snow fleas. The only insects that were out in abundance were winter crane flies, and though I may be anthropomorphizing, they looked pretty overjoyed about the spring-like weather. Winter crane flies swarm together in a way that looks like a celebratory ritual dance. It's fun to watch. It's also hard to photograph, as you will know if you have been following this blog for years. And, of course, I didn't have my camera. But here's a look at the winter crane flies' dance of joy on a glorious winter day:

I realize that the angle of the photo makes it look like they are on the snow, but they're not, they're all in mid-air, mid-dance.

There was one other bug, a fly that visited the picnic table when we stopped for a break. Actually, I was taking the above pictures when the fly came by, and my husband pointed out the fly to me. Then it flew over to a tree next to where I was standing. Not something I could really photograph with my phone, though. My husband reads this blog, so he knows about flies being out and about on winter days, but I don't think he has really witnessed it before, and he seemed a little nonplussed by it.

We moved our trail camera a couple of days ago because there is a hole between some rocks that we have lately been seeing muddy footprints leading to. The footprints made no impression because the snow there was pretty crusty, and whatever animal made them was obviously light enough not to break through it; all we saw was muddy smudges leading from the hole up the path. It took a few days of this for me to remember that I had the means of finding out what was living in there without having to spend the night shivering in the woods, staring at a hole in the ground. The experiment bore fruit right away–we set up the camera on Sunday night, and on our walk on Monday we could see that there were pictures of something, though we couldn't tell what on the camera itself. So today we brought our spare camera card on our walk and swapped them out, so I could check out the pictures on the computer. However, I also saw something else on our walk yesterday that clued me in on what was living there–I saw some identifiable animal footprints on the path, not by the hole, but nearby. So I had a pretty good idea of what was living there. The photos confirmed I was right:

Both nights the camera was out there we got pictures of this raccoon. It's not quite pointed at the hole, so there's no shots of it actually going in or out.

A bobcat wandered by, too. The pictures have times on them; the raccoon was there in the wee small hours of the morning, but the bobcat came by in the evening.

Sparkling Weather

 We've had a bit more snow since my last post.

Today was sunny, though, and the sunlight sparkled like rainbow glitter on the snow. The temperature that crept above freezing lured me out with my camera; since Sunday's snow it's been below freezing day and night, but I did see a few insects on my snowshoe hikes the last couple of days, so I figured a sunny, warmer day would be a good time to go look for bugs. In fact, when we were out on Sunday during the storm, I saw a winter stonefly crawling around atop the snow. Here's something I am wondering about: how is it that I have lived in places that have snowy winters for so long, going for walks in the snow for many winters, and it is not until this year that I noticed how many insects crawl around on the snow? I didn't do a lot of bug walks in snowy weather in the last few years, but I was certainly out in the snow, and primed to see insects everywhere. I did see them, but I never saw so many. Was I just walking in the wrong place? I spent most of my life thinking that bugs all die in the winter, how in the world did I go for snow hikes for so many years without noticing how untrue that is? Anyway, I was expecting today to be like the day last week, after that storm, when there were insects everywhere. That turned out not to be the case, and for about half of my walk I was annoyed that I had even brought my camera with me. 

But it improved. Backyard Bug of the Day:

Midges. Male...

... and female. I saw several of each, mostly in the valley, which once again was where I found the majority of the bugs on my walk today. Sadly for the midges, I did not see any of the males and females in proximity to each other. I saw one on my snowshoe hike a couple of days ago when the temperature was below freezing, so I was not surprised to find several of them today (which, by the way, was only just above freezing).

Other Bugs:

 

I found a lot of stoneflies, and had to watch where I stepped all along our snowshoe tracks from the last couple of days to keep from stepping on them.

 I found a couple of different species, I think, if I am right that the fact that they are different sizes means they are different species. I know it's hard to tell their sizes from the pictures, but this one...

... and this one were both taken at maximum close-up with the macro lens, so that should give an indication of the difference.

I thought this one was a different species at first glance, because it was bright red, but when I looked closer I could see that it was covered with something. At the time I thought it was some kind of fungus, but looking at the picture on the computer...

... I think it's covered with a whole lot of mites.

This was my favorite stonefly of the day, because it was on a tree trunk at about my eye level, which meant I did not have to bend down or crouch to get a picture of it, unlike all the bugs in the snow.

Also to be found on tree trunks, though only two of them, the only snow fleas I saw today. There were only a handful on each of the two trees. After that huge abundance of them last week after the snow, this week they were scarce.

I found one snow scorpionfly today. Female.

And today's most unexpected find:

A fly, crawling around on the snow. As far as I know, this is not a "winter" fly. But insects do whatever they want, I've noticed.

 I found a few spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:

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This poor jumping spider was dead, curled up on its back on top of the snow. I thought maybe it was just too cold, because I have never seen a jumping spider in the winter, so I moved it to a sunny spot in the hopes that it would warm up and be on its way, but when I went snowshoeing later it was still there, in the exact same curled-up position.