Looking at Clouds From Another Side

I read a book once about clouds. It was a field guide to the different kinds of clouds, giving their names, and explaining what caused them to be the particular shape and form, and what they portended. It was an interesting book, and though I didn't actually learn the names by heart, or even really learn to distinguish them all, I enjoyed reading it and trying to identify the many kinds of clouds I saw on the road trip I was traveling on as I read it. The book had something to do with the Cloud Appreciation Society, and there was a part, I think in the introduction, in which the author expressed his annoyance at people who say they hate cloudy days. To him, you see, clouds are fascinating, and I kind of understood him. I don't like overcast days, but even though I have expressed annoyance at clouds many times, I realized when reading his defense of them that I was generalizing. Because I do like clouds, when they are not covering the entire sky with a uniform sheet of darkening gray. And I think most people probably do feel the same way - they have at least some appreciation for the big, fluffy, white clouds, and look for shapes in them, and enjoy them, and then say, "Ugh, a cloudy day," sometimes, not meaning that they hate all clouds.

I was thinking about all of this today on my bug walk, on a mostly cloudless, bright, not-as-warm-as-yesterday-or-the-day-before, windy afternoon. But I was thinking about it in terms of bugs. I have seen a meme on the internet a couple of times where people express joy that it is freezing cold winter because that means all the bugs have died, bwa ha ha ha ha! When I see that meme I get annoyed, for two reasons. One, because it's inaccurate - the bugs haven't all died. Go out on a winter day when the temperature is in the 40s or higher and you will see them. Even ants will be out in the winter when it's warm enough - they aren't just dying at the end of summer when the picnics are all over. And the reason insects will be so abundant in the spring is because so many of them are just spending the winter out of sight, somewhere sheltered. And think about it - there are winter fireflies, and winter crane flies. They have those names because they are around in the winter - not on the coldest of days, but on some pretty chilly ones. The other reason I get annoyed by the meme is because the more I have come to appreciate insects, the more annoying I find it that so many, many people hate them just because. Sure, many of them can be awful - the ones that bite, and spread disease, but many more are extremely helpful, and in fact vital to our lives. And the vast majority of them will never interact with any human at all, so no human has any reason to hate them. But I guess I used to be one of those people, too. I used to think bugs are icky. So I shouldn't be too hard on them. But maybe they could at least remember this - butterflies are insects, too. And maybe we shouldn't hate so easily.

I didn't find as many insects as I expected today, even with the temperature not making it to 50ºF. I was out in the warmest, still sunny part of the afternoon. But hey, it's February, and I did see insects, so I can't complain!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Whatever little hideaway this wasp has been spending the winter in must have warmed up in the last couple of days.

 

 I expected to find winter fireflies today. What surprised me is that this is the only one I found.

 I had another look at yesterday's mystery object, which I am pretty sure is a cocoon...

I wanted to see it again because after looking at the pictures of it that I took yesterday I thought maybe I should look at the other side of it, and sure enough, there's a big hole in it. There's nothing in there anymore - whether it emerged on its own or was extracted and eaten I do not know.

Blogger Fail

I am a perfect disgrace of a backyard bug blogger. Both days this weekend were in the 50s – today was almost 60ºF – and I didn't do a proper bug walk. I did go out today just before dusk (it's amazing how quickly a day can go from bright to dark), but by then, without the apricity (vocab reminder: apricity is the warmth of the winter sun), I suspect many bugs that might have been out earlier had gone back into their cozy spaces. I did see bugs - a few winter crane flies, some other kind of fly, a gnat – and yesterday while we were in the car I found a spider dangling from my hand (I moved it to the dashboard), but I only managed to get one bug picture today in the backyard:

 Winter firefly. Just the kind of thing one expects to find on a sunny February day when the temperature is less than one degree away from 60ºF. This was taken in the last minutes before it became too dark to see.

 

 It was pretty dark by the time I found this, but that's not the reason I don't know what it is. I have two guesses - either a cocoon, or an egg. It was hanging from a cedar tree.

I do occasionally find insects in the house, too – there was a moth I found on the skylight in the bathroom on Christmas day that has been there ever since. Occasionally I will find a stinkbug. Yesterday I found a western conifer seed bug on the storm door (we were on our way out the door, so instead of taking its picture like a dutiful backyard bug blogger, I just nudged it out the door when we went out). And this evening a little visitor dropped by while I was sitting at my computer:

 I was amused by the fact that this ladybeetle was crawling around on my bee notebook. It (the ladybeetle, not the notebook) has a bit of a fungal problem.

Tomorrow isn't supposed to be quite as warm, but I will try to get outside to find something interesting. This whole week is supposed to be rather balmy by February standards, but it is also supposed to be raining, so I may or may not get a chance to go looking for bugs.

Winter Insects

We had a blizzard last week to start a series of several days with varying amounts of snowfall. Today was a milder day, though, and when I was outside finally shoveling the last of the snow off the driveway, I thought it might be a good day to find snow fleas (which, as a reminder, are not fleas, but a species of springtail). A gnat wandered past my face as I was taking a break, which was a definite sign that bugs could be found today. So, when I was done I put away my shovel and went to get my camera instead.

The first thing I discovered was that the snow in the backyard is deeper than the snow on the driveway. It was a bit of a slog. And I didn't find any snowfleas. Or any winter fireflies, which I was also looking for. But I did find this:

 A swarm of winter crane flies. I have seen them in the winter before (because they are winter crane flies, obviously), but never with snow on the ground. I thought that they hung out in the leaf litter when the temperature was below freezing, but now I don't think so, because the leaf litter here is about a foot under the snow.

Can't see them? How's this:

 

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 One settled on the snow.

Snow Bugs

We had a little bit of snow yesterday, and after a lengthy deliberation, I decided that the warmer air of today was not going to be enough to finish off the snow on the driveway (it would have been nice to have more sun), so I went out to shovel the rest of the snow that we didn't bother to shovel last night. While I was out there the sun came out for a few minutes, and I happened to glance up at the house and saw something.

I should mention now that I am about to break with the usual protocol of this blog that involves putting the spiders at the end. Because a spider is what this post is all about. So, I'll put in a gap here, as I usually do, so that you can back out now without seeing the spider if you are that afraid of them. Or you can hurriedly scroll past it to the other things that will come after. I respect your arachnophobia if you have it, but what I saw on the side of the house was a spider:
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 A rather small jumping spider. It was not interested in having its picture taken, so I didn't get any closer than this.

 A fly landed nearby, too. This fly was about 3 times the size of the spider. It flew away pretty quickly, but I wonder if the spider would have gone after it otherwise.

Since there was a spider and a fly about, I thought I go look for other things, even though the temperature was only about 41ºF. I figured I might at least find some snow fleas (which are not really fleas, but a species of springtail).

I didn't find any snow fleas, but...

 

 I did find a few springtails on the snow in various places in the backyard. Just solitary ones, not big groups like I have seen before.

 Such amazing little creatures...

What Season Is This?

Ah, another beautiful day in January. We flirted with 60ºF today, but I don't think we made it. Still, it was glorious. I am not sure we can call this a January thaw, because January has mostly been pretty mild to begin with, and there have been days at least the the low 50s scattered throughout. But I will say this - we are expecting a nor'easter tomorrow into the next day, and because of this mild weather pattern, we are supposed to get a lot of rain rather than a huge pile of snow. A nor'easter, you see, is not a snowstorm by definition - it has more to do with the wind, and the direction of it. Usually our nor'easters are snowstorms, because usually it's cold here in the winter, but at the moment we're having rain temperatures.

But enough about things that haven't happened yet - today was lovely, sunny, and warm, so I went out looking for bugs before I went off to the beach (no, I didn't go swimming, and I was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt - it's not THAT warm here).

The warm weather is obviously waking up (though they aren't really sleeping lots of bugs, and though I haven't actually seen a lot of them, I think I have heard them. A lot of insects and other creatures spend the winter in the leaf litter, and if you stand very still and quiet you can hear the sounds of very small things stirring among the dried leaves in the woods. It's the sound of nature stirring.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of Hemiptera.

 

 I found another in another part of the yard.

 There were springtails around, too.

 And quite a lot of candy-striped leaf hoppers. It's curious that it's only the candy-striped leaf hoppers I ever see on these warm winter days, never other species of leaf hoppers or other plant hoppers.

I would say that it was the arachnids, and not the insects, that won the day in the backyard today, though. The last few days I have seen a lot of random spider threads on plants in the backyard, but haven't seen any spiders until today. Arachnid Appreciation:
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 There were a couple of these spiders on a rock - at least two of them, but they were small and moving around so it is possible that there were three.

 

 There was a jumping spider on the same rock.

 Presumably the same harvestman from yesterday, because it was in the same place.

 And those tiny mites that were with it were still there.

Too small to see, really.

January Picnic

On this lovely January day with the temperature in the mid 50s we decided to eat our lunch outside in the arbor. Today was the kind of day that would be considered freezing in September, but was gloriously balmy in January, even a January that hasn't been all that cold most of the time. I shared a picture of our picnic on social media, and my mother commented that at this time of year at least there are no flies out.

But there were:

 There were several flies basking in the apricity* on the front of the house.

*Apricity means the warmth of the winter sun. In case that's a new word for you.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Also enjoying the apricity today were several candy-striped leaf hoppers.

 There were six or seven of these on one mountain laurel plant.

 And an ant.

 And something waiting for actual springtime, rather than just a spring-like winter day.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Harvestman...

 And I didn't notice these when I took the picture, but they do look like mites, so that would make them arachnids, not insects. Not that I can really tell. They were TINY.

Snow Comes and Goes

Ah, first blog of 2017! We've had a lot of cold weather, and then over the weekend, adding up two snowstorms we got a little over a foot of snow, but it's warmed up the last two days, and most of that is gone. So, with temperatures in the low 50s, and having spotted a crane fly on my porch when I went out to get the mail, I decided to do a bug walk today. Mostly I found what I expected - a few small swarms of crane flies that I did not photograph, a winter firefly that I did - and  a couple of things I did not expect.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Rove beetle. I prodded a rotting log and found this inside.

The aforementioned winter firefly, basking on a tree trunk as they are wont to do on warm winter days.

I was surprised to find an ant crawling on another tree trunk.

The only surprising thing about finding this springtail gliding on a tiny puddle is that there were not more of them.

As I said, we had around a foot of snow a few days ago, but between the rain last night, and a couple of days of warmth, most of it was gone today, except for about an inch in some of the shaded areas of the backyard. There was plenty to see on the snow, though:

 Obviously there were animals (voles?) tunneling under all that snow...

 ... and in the ground, too.

 There were many animal footprints in that thin remaining layer, all of which must have been made today.

 I found this cocoon on a tree branch - waiting for spring, just like me.