Busy Day in the Backyard

 Where to start? What to say? I spent a long time outside today, or staring out the window at the outside today, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the wonderfulness of the natural world today, so what do I even say about it?

I love my backyard. I love my woods. I love seeing interesting and beautiful things living and growing. I love learning new things because of what I have seen. 

Today while I was getting to ready to go for my walk in the woods, sitting on the back porch putting on my shoes, I saw my first hummingbird of the year. It zoomed past me and into the woods. It made me smile, sitting there on the back porch by myself. I don't smile much.

Today my backyard was so full of life! The flowering crab apple is flowering, the birds are singing their springtime songs, the bugs are buzzing, the voles are...

... doing whatever voles do. This is the first time I have ever been able to get a picture of a vole, I think. While I was looking out the window at the crab apple tree some movement in my peripheral vision (is it still called peripheral vision if its below, and not to the side? I think so) caught my attention, and I saw this vole sneak under the garden fence. I watched for a few minutes, and eventually it came out again. I didn't get much of a chance to focus, and I was taking this picture at an angle through a dirty window, so this isn't a candidate for the photography show at the art center downtown, but it's exciting for me. I only ever catch quick glimpses of voles. It's probably a bad thing that it's going into the garden, but whatever.

Anyway, about the flowering crab apple... One of the things I have learned in my backyard (and through reading) is that when I see birds enthusiastically darting about in my crab apple tree while it is in bloom, they are not there for the flowers, they are there for the insects. And contrary to my assumption that they are there for the bees, they are there for bugs that I don't see–caterpillars. Caterpillars are what a huge number of songbirds feed to their young, and it takes a huge number of caterpillars to raise a baby bird. What you can't see from the ground is that some species of trees, and apparently my crab apple is one of them, are full of caterpillars in the spring. In other years I have seen warblers in that tree, but last year and this year it has been orioles. In fact, a few days ago there were four or five male Baltimore orioles in there together, and today there were two species of orioles:

Male orchard oriole

It stayed deep in the tree, and it took me a while to get a good enough view of it to know what was in there shaking the branches. I took these pictures from the window upstairs, which gave me a good vantage point, better than looking up into the tree from the ground, but not a very close one.

I think this is a female orchard oriole. Unfortunately she didn't stick around long, and stayed in the shadows, so I never got a good look, or a good shot.

Baltimore oriole, male. This one was taken today.

These were taken a couple of days ago, when there were several male Baltimore orioles in the tree at once:

 Anyway, lots of things out and about today. From the window I saw the birds in the crab apple tree (and there were other species, too, like tufted titmouse, and some others I couldn't see well enough to identify), the vole, chipmunks, a squirrel, some bees, some butterflies, and various species of birds on the ground and in the trees, and in the sky. When I finally decided to go outside to try to get pictures of either birds or bees in the crab apple tree (spoiler: I got neither), I opened the back door and saw:

Taken sideways through the storm door, so it's distorted, sorry. But it was so cute, I couldn't resist. It's a bit unusual for me to see a rabbit at that time of day. Usually I see them more along toward evening. 

I guess now might be a good time to mention that while I was in the woods, it occurred to me that I saw members of two Phylums Phyla, (Chordata and Arthropoda) and 6 Classes (Arachnids, Insects, Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, and Reptiles. I'll bet you can guess what kind of reptile I saw). Except I can never remember the different levels of taxonomy, and the names of them, so I just had to look up phyla and class, and Chordata came up. I was thinking vertebrates (which is what are in the Phylum chordata, meaning things with a spinal chord, or having vertebrae) and invertebrates (no vertebrae). And just so you know, I am probably getting some of this wrong. Anyway, lots of different kinds of living things. So far you've seen birds and mammals, so now for some Arthropods!

Let's begin with Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

Eyed click beetle. This is only the second time in my life I have seen one of these. The first time was before I started Backyard Bug of the Day. Before I had a digital camera even. I did take a picture of that first one, which was on my niece's shirt at the time. She was a little kid, and props to her for not freaking out. Anyway, it was cool then, and it's cool now. 

It's also pretty big for a click beetle. A lot of them are only about a quarter of an inch long or so. I was excited to find this today.
 

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Remember all those caddisfly larvae I posted pictures of over the winter? Wait, I may not have actually posted many of them. Well, I saw them when I went on my hikes. And now, there are caddisfly adults in the woods. And this is one of them.

And for another, Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

Different species. This is one I am pretty sure I have never seen before. It's rare for me to see new species now, after... wait, is this 10 years since I started Backyard Bug of the Day? I think it is! And still finding new species!

I think this calls for a celebration, so... Yay!

I took my camera outside with me when I went to get the mail, and was happy to see that the rock garden is being patrolled by a carpenter bee:

I find carpenter bees amusing.

Ants on sassafras flowers

On the same small tree, an assassin bug nymph that has been in different spots on this tree every day this week. I posted a picture of it in my last post (which, I know, was not a week ago. I am not making this precisely a weekly blog...).

There is a wild cherry tree next to the stone stairs leading up from the street, and as I walked by it and its low branch that encroaches on the stairs a bit, I thought about how it probably annoys me husband, but how I hope he never cuts it because it's a place I find a lot of bugs. And then I found three different species of bugs on it right away:

Some kind of leaf hopper. So small I had to look at it through the camera to know that's what it was.

I think this is a species of soldier beetle. I see them around this time every year.

Another beetle, really small. There were several of these on the tree.

My walk to the mailbox was my only backyard bug walk today; the rest of the bugs I found were in the woods.

I stopped to take a picture of this moth, and it took my husband a few moments to figure out what I was even looking at.

 The caddisfly was not the only insect on the picnic table. There were also a bunch of little beetles (today was a pretty beetly day altogether):

Now for amphibians. The first picture is a sad one:

Once again the small pond has dried up, and the salamander eggs are left high and dry. They haven't completely dried out, but it's not looking so good for the salamanders. BUT! I haven't been down there in three weeks, and it kind of looks like some of the cells/sacs/whatever-they're-called are empty, so maybe the salamanders hatched before it completely dried up? I am still not sure they can survive in their earliest stages without water, but I am going to just hope that it worked out okay for some of them. Otherwise it appears that climate change may be dooming the salamanders in my woods if this is where they lay their eggs. They return to the pool where they hatched to mate and lay eggs, and if nothing is hatching and surviving from this pond, then there won't be any more salamanders from here.

Things are a bit better in the big pond. They were hard to spot, but we saw several frogs:

 There were a couple in the stream, too, a small one that did not stick around for pictures, and, in the part of the stream that I think of as the frog pool, which is right next to a rock that I have named Frog Rock:

By the standards of my woods, this is a huge frog. The blur above it and a bit to the right is one of several bugs that were flying around in front of it. I was hoping to see it try to catch one, but it didn't.

Also in the woods:

Poison ivy. Shiny and red for spring.

Anyway, back to the subject of being happy to have learned things, both from observation and reading. Due to the fact that I have spent the last several years observing and reading about the insects in my backyard, I know that ichneumon wasps do not sting. So when I woke up a couple of days ago and saw this on the skylight right above me...

... I knew I didn't have to worry about it.
 

 Before we get to the spiders and reptile, I just want to say that it was a perfectly wonderful day in the backyard, all the way into the evening, when I went outside for some sky time and could hear a barred owl in the woods. I love the things that are living around me.

I saw a lot of spiders today. I only took two pictures of spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Jumping spider.

After all these years I should know what kind of spider this is, but I don't.
 

Most of the other spiders I saw were either tiny spiders on webs like the one above, which are hard to photograph when there's even a hint of breeze, or spiders in the leaf litter, and I was not up for photographing things on the ground today.
 

Backyard Reptile of the Day:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

As we were leaving for our walk in the woods I said to my husband that I have not seen any snakes yet this year. And then less than five minutes later I almost stepped on this:

This could be either a garter snake or a ribbon snake. Usually what I find are garters, but I think this one might be a ribbon. I couldn't get any closer to this one because when I almost stepped on it it zoomed down into one of the old test holes in our woods, and I could not go down after it with my recovering knee. Not to mention it would have sped off before I could get down there.

To be able to identify it I would need a better shot of its face.

No Mow

 Happy First Day of May! Or, as I will be observing it, First Day of No Mow May! Once again I am participating in No Mow May, in which people do not mow their lawns for the month of May. Why?

Because of this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

(Just in case you are straining your eyes trying to find bugs in these last two pictures, there aren't any). In May, if you don't mow your lawn (and don't treat it with herbicides), it gives a chance for spring ephemerals to grow and bloom, and to provide an early food source for pollinators. If you want them to pollinate food crops later on, they have to have something to eat now. If I mowed now, all of these beautiful flowers (and others I did not photograph) would be chopped down. The bees and other pollinators would lose their food source, and I would lose the loveliness.

I saw a lot of bugs today, mostly bees and flies, and all in too much of a hurry to feed on nectar to have their pictures taken. I saw two species of butterflies, both flying past me without pausing, and quite a few tiny spiders.

Also... Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Assassin bug nymph. Because if there are all these other bugs flying around, then there will be something there to eat them.

There are lots of things blooming right now:

Bleeding heart. This is not a wildflower, I planted it.

Sassafrass tree

Dogwood tree

Flowering crab apple. I didn't see many bees on these, which made me surprised and disappointed.

My peach tree only has maybe 5 flowers on it. It is not doing well.

Here are some shots I took in the woods today and yesterday, now that my knee is finally well enough to get out there:

Violets. Not one I see much in the woods, they are more of an edge of the woods clearing kind of flower. Or lawn flower. Not middle of the woods emerging from the leaf litter flower.

Wood anemone. These were just on the verge of blooming when I went for a walk in the woods the day before my surgery, and I was worried that they would be done blooming before I could get out there again; spring ephemerals are ephemeral. I was happy to find they are still blooming.

A little bit of greening happening up in the tree canopy.

Gray tree frog. It seems to be emerging out of a hole, and I wonder if it is emerging from winter hibernation. It was a lovely day for it.

Fern fiddleheads and a flower I have still not identified yet. Or maybe I identified it last year, but I don't remember what it is.
 

Okay, you came here for bugs, so now for more bugs:

Click beetle. Lately when I have been trying to take pictures of bugs they have been doing this weird and annoying thing of landing right next to me in my shadow. I then have to move so they are in the light, and that scares them away. This is the moment of taking flight because I annoyed the beetle by moving.

Also annoying: right now all the bugs are at or near ground level, which is never the easiest way to get pictures, but it harder right now because I can't crouch due to my knee.

Case in point: this stinkbug on the floor in my dining room.

We had to go out and run an errand this evening, and got home after dark, and there were a few bugs on the porch, attracted to the light:

Geometer moth

Midge

Moth

This beetle is not dead, it is just pretending because I tried to take its picture while it was on the wall, and it did not like that, so it dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead.

I know in my last post I said I was going to try to blog once a week or so, but I said that two days before I had knee surgery. Taking pictures, and even walking around the backyard, has been a bit challenging in the interim. I tried a couple of times, but here's one of only two pictures I have from that time:

A pair of crane flies on the front porch screen door.

The other picture is in Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I was sitting on the couch one evening, with an ice pack strapped to my knee, and this spider appeared, marching right toward the couch. It was huge, and not keen on being captured in my bug vacuum. I am glad I caught it, because I would not have been keen on knowing it was walking around if I didn't catch it. So, here it is in the bug vacuum, annoyed. I took it outside, and under normal circumstances I would have taken photos of it out there, but it was raining, and I couldn't really walk down the porch steps because of my knee.