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.