Unwanted Thoughts

I've mused a lot in my backyard this week, but everything always comes back to the pandemic we are currently under attack from, and I don't want to write about that, so I won't. Just appreciate that it's spring, and nature is waking up:

 

It's been a surprisingly unbuggy week for me. Not surprising that I didn't see any bugs on the day that it snowed all afternoon, but I expected more on some of the other days. I see a lot in the woods, but I don't have my camera with me then. I saw my first bumblebee of the season in the woods–and then saw one the next day in the rock garden, but I didn't have my camera to hand, and it zoomed away immediately anyway. Today, however, I did I a nice, long bug walk, and even though the temperature had not yet reached its lovely, springy peak of 60ºF yet when I was out with my camera, there were a lot of insects around, representing a plethora of orders.

Because it's where the Backyard Bug of the Day is classified, let's begin with Coleoptera, aka beetles. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 There were a couple of these on a tree trunk. I still don't know what kind of beetle these are, and I am not going to look it up. I don't want to know, because I know their name won't do them justice.

Other Beetles:

 Winter firefly. It is shocking and worrying to me how few of these I have seen this year. There is a particular tree where there are usually dozens on the trunk on days like today, and this year there are none. I spotted two today, on different trees.

 Weevil

 So many insects today that I could get two in one picture, the weevil, and our next Order for today, Hymenoptera. Some kind of wasp, possibly a sawfly (which is a wasp, not a fly).

 I think this is an ichneumon wasp of some kind.

 Also in the order Hymenoptera: ants.

As for Hemiptera:

 On the candy striped leaf hoppers' favorite tree, a candy striped leaf hopper and a sharp shooter.

Diptera:

 I think this is a bottle fly.

 I am not sure if these are flies. There were a lot of them on the compost pile, sitting on the detritus there and beating their wings.

I don't know what order springtails are in... Okay, I just looked it up, and there are multiple orders of springtails. I am not going to get more detailed than that, but I did see two different species of springtails today:

 This one is a snowflea.

Lepidoptera:

 I haven't seen a butterfly yet this year, but moths have been around a lot lately.

Orthoptera:

 Greater anglewing katydid eggs

I took a walk in the woods while it was snowing the other day. It snowed all afternoon, but the snow didn't stick, because the ground was too warm, but it did stick on the many, many little spiderwebs throughout the forest. I didn't see any spiders that day, but it was obvious that there are a lot of them out and active lately, because there were a lot of webs. Today I saw a lot of spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:
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Welcome, Pollinator!

My bug walk today was curtailed by rain. Here's what I got...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Bee. The creeping myrtle is pretty much in full bloom, but I have not been seeing pollinators among the flowers. I think maybe the flowers bloomed too early, and the pollinators had not come out yet. Today I did finally see a bee in the rock garden.

 It's been a strange week, for a lot of reasons. I have done bug walks on other days, but I only found the things I have been posting for weeks, so I didn't feel it was worth posting them again. Actually, a couple of days ago I saw several photo-worthy insects as I set off on my daily woodlands walk, but I didn't have my camera with me. I figured, though, that when I got back from my walk I would be able to do a bug walk and find a lot of bugs. This turned out not to be the case. I didn't find anything at all on my bug walk. And so it goes. This may not be a daily blog anymore. I think I may only be posting if I find something that I think is interesting enough to post. Fortunately for you, if you have an insatiable need for insect photos, my threshold for interesting is pretty low. This week has run the gamut from snow one night (it didn't stay around, because it turned to rain), to today's high of the mid-60s. Sunshine, snow, and rain. First day of astronomical spring. And I am in self-isolation from the Covid-19 virus.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Life Imitates Literature?

I might have written about this before; I don't know, I have been writing this blog for a pretty long time now, and I can't really remember much of what I have said... Anyway... When I was a kid, a lot of the books I read featured the idea, put forward usually by an adult, or at least the narrator of the story, that spending a lot of time outside in the fresh air makes you hungry and tires you out. I always thought that was strange when I was young. It was mentioned in SO many stories, and yet I spent a great deal of my time outside, in the fresh air, running around, and it never seemed to make me extra-special hungry or tired. The funny thing is, now that I am an adult, I do feel like spending the entire day outside in the fresh air makes you tired, albeit in a good way. Granted, I do a lot of tiring things when I am outside, but still, I understand about the fresh air now. I can't explain it, but I get it. Now, this is not to say that doing my bug walk made me tired, or that it makes me tired on any other day when I do one. But today as I was walking around my backyard, searching in vain for insects, I had an amusing thought, that maybe the bugs were tired from spending all day yesterday out in the fresh air, so they didn't come out today. Yes, I know, it's nonsense, but I am still unable to explain why bugs are so plentiful on one day, and absent the next. It was only a couple of degrees cooler; it was overcast on and off, though. It's always a mystery to me, and probably always will be.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Fly.

Cool eyes.

Yesterday when it was so sunny and lovely, perfect for basking on a tree trunk if you are the right size and have the right type of appendages, I looked all over for winter fireflies and didn't find any. Today I found one:

Not on a tree trunk, though, on the side of the house.

Gnat in a crocus

Beetle. Interesting to see this again, two days in a row. I rarely see these beetles at all.

Insect Confusion

Today I saw three different species of spiders when I went out to get the mail, including one in the mailbox. I didn't have my camera with me, but I was able to re-find two of those species (and a few more) on my bug walk, though not those specific individuals–I did look for the spider in the mailbox, but I didn't see it again. More on the spiders later.

First... Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what this is. Could be a wasp. Could be an ant in a winged phase, looking to start a new colony. Ants and wasps don't seem like the kinds of things it would be difficult to distinguish between, but they are, after all, in the same order, Hymenoptera. Obviously there are sufficient similarities between them for scientists to class them together like that.

 Adding to my confusion: I found this in the same general area of my yard. This definitely looks like an ant, but it also looks like the winged creature above. Are they the same species, and this on is not in its winged phase?

Other Bugs:

 This is definitely an ant.

Things are starting to bloom, and where there are flowers, there will be pollinators. I haven't seen any so far on the creeping myrtle, but the first crocus bloomed today, and my first look at the flower revealed that there was already an insect inside:

 I was unable to figure out what it was.

 Later I spotted a sweat bee on the bloom.

Also beginning to bloom:

 Hazelnuts. This is the female flower.

 This is the male flower. Or rather, flowers, because there are multiples on the catkin. I believe that is a birch catkin bug, even though this is not a birch.

 Sawfly? More wasp confusion. Sawflies, as you may recall, are actually stingless wasps, not flies.

 Considering the sunshine and the temperature less than a degree from 70ºF, I expected a lot of candy striped leaf hoppers on their favorite tree, but there were only a few.

 I can't remember, but I think this is a kind of dung beetle. I have always thought these were adorable.

 I found another one later, on my shirt. As adorable as they are, I am not keen on having a dung beetle on my shirt... or my hand.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This is one of the spiders I saw when I went out to get the mail. As a web builder, it was easy to find again when I went out with my camera.

 Spider on the garden shed.

 Jumping spider

This is the same kind of spider that was in the mailbox, but this one is on the picnic table.

Shelter

I didn't do a bug walk today because, although it looked gorgeous, the weather was not exactly the, "Ah, springtime!" kind of day that makes bugs want to crawl out of their cozy nooks. I did find a bug, though, when I was out in the woods. I happened to flip over some leaf litter while picking up some trash, and exposed an insect that was sheltering there.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Green stink bug. It was not happy to be rousted from its hiding place, and crawled back under the leaf.

And other than a tiny spider I annoyed while cutting some vines, that was it for arthropod sightings today.

Winter Visitors

For years after we moved into our house we used to get wasps inside in the winter. I have no idea where they came from, but they would be flying around, mostly trying to get out through the windows, not really understanding the concept of glass. On three separate occasions I was awakened in the morning by being stung. One of those times was my fault; I rolled over and my hand landed on a wasp that was on the bed, and it stung me in self defense. On the other two occasions I was stung in my armpit for no provocation whatsoever. How's that for a rude awakening? In the case of the first two of these matitudinal attacks I retaliated and killed the wasps. But by the time of the third one–an unprovoked attack on my armpit–I had changed my attitude about wasps, so I captured the wasp and released it outside. I never liked killing the wasps in my house, but for a couple of years I killed every one. I didn't want them in here, and so they had to die. But I don't feel that way about them anymore. Granted, I might be killing them by releasing them outside, but it is possible that they are able to find a place to shelter before the cold takes them. I assume so, because they usually fly off. But given their propensity for attacks on my armpits while I slumber I don't want them in the house. I figure I do enough to protect habitat for them outside; I don't have to share my own habitat with them, too. However, it has been several years since we have had wasps in the house in the winter–until this winter, when they have recently made an appearance. So, I have been catching and releasing them, and not feeling at all concerned about them freezing to death because it has not been freezing out. I released one today that landed right on a bush in front of the front porch, so I decided to take its picture, and that wasp is now Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I found this later when I did my bug walk. I don't know if it's the same wasp.

Other Bugs:

 We also get lady beetles in the house during the winter. I wonder if this one was inside, and somehow ended up outside today, or if it was outside and woke up to the lovely sunshine.

I found a swarm of tiny things:

 Too small to be winter crane flies, but I couldn't get a good look at them. They look like gnats.

 Now that I know that winter ants exists it's no longer surprising when I see ants on warmish winter days, but this is a different species of ant. Still, it's been mild most of the week, so I wasn't surprised to see this, either.

And, on a tree trunk...

 Winter firefly and snow fleas...

 ... and on the same trunk, a twice-stabbed lady beetle and snow fleas.

 Beetle

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I didn't get to see the face of this jumping spider, so I don't know if it was the same one with the red face from yesterday.

Spider that has just caught a gnat. Knowing that's what the prey is should give you an idea of how small the spider is.

Dodging Frogs

The coolest thing I heard today was the spring peepers, who have begun their nightly concerts in the wetlands. We heard them as we drove home, slaloming around the frogs hopping across the road, hoping not to squish any. The coolest thing I have to show you today is a spider, which will be at the end of the post. In fact, the insects today were scarce and uncooperative:

 Gnat on snowdrop

 I am assuming this is a plant bug, Hemiptera, but this is the best look I got.

There were lots of snow fleas out, and a few winter fireflies:

 And a handful of candy striped leaf hoppers. Though it had clouded over by afternoon, taking away the sun they so enjoy basking in, the temperature was in the 60s, so they didn't seem to mind much.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This is a new species of jumping spider for me, but I didn't realize it when I was taking pictures of it. It certainly looks similar to others from this view, but...

 ... when it looked up, it revealed a bright red face mask! I must admit that I didn't see that when I took the picture. It was small, it didn't stick around long, it was kind of dark from the clouds, and I was unable to get closer than this. I only saw the amazing red face when I looked at the picture on the computer.

 

 Here's a closer look.

The leaf litter is a popular prowling ground for spiders.