Spring is here!

It's officially spring and despite the cold winter, a few sure signs have already appeared.

A close up of an opening Crocus

One of my favorite early spring blooms, Lamium purpureum red deadnettle.

An early spring bee (Andrena sp.) on snowdrop blossom.

Andrena is a genus of bees known as mining bees. They nest in the ground and are among the earliest bees to become active in the spring.

Female Andrena bee

In the leaf litter and under rotten logs

Kick over a few rotten logs and sift through the leaf litter, here are some of the tiny things you may find!

Tiny spider. Note the eight eyes.

Very red centipede! Strigamia sp.

A mite. Some mites are predatory and feed on other mites.

An earthworm. Many species of earthworm are invasive nonnatives, hailing from Europe and Asia and are changing the nutrient cycles in many soil habitats.

Springtails! I posted about these non-insect hexapods earlier this winter.

An ant, foraging slowly in the colder weather. She's about to encounter a springtail, the blurry white figure to the lower left.

A bristletail, order Archaeognatha. These are some of the most unchanged "primitive" insects, appearing in the Devonian period. They can use their tails to leap much like a springtail. They eat algae, moss, lichens or rotten organic material.

Cricket nymph. This little guy must grow and molt several more times before he becomes an adult.

Opiliones nymph (baby harvestman/daddy longlegs) That's my guess anyway!

A millipede coiled up for safety.

Here's a link to an article I wrote for Habitat Herald about leaf litter:

Life in the Fallen Leaves

Bees on Flowers!

Spring is only two weeks away! I feel like we need more bee on flower action this morning.

Apis mellifera (European honeybee) on Trifolium pratense (West Virginia)

Apis mellifera (European honeybee) on red Salvia(?) (California)

Apis mellifera (European honeybee) on Centaurea solstitialis (California)

Bombus impatiens (eastern bumblebee) on Chrysanthemum (Virginia) 

Halictus sp. on Aster (Virginia) 

Xylocopa virginica (carpenter bee, male) on Chrysanthemum (Virginia) 

Pseudoscorpions

I found these little creatures under a piece of driftwood on a California beach a few years ago. They are pseudoscorpions, an order of arachnids that resemble miniature scorpions - minus the tail, hence the name. They are very tiny (only a few millimeters long) and thus are rarely noticed, but there are thousands of species, and they can be found throughout the world. They eat other small arthropods. Like scorpions, the mothers carry their tiny babies on their backs after they hatch.

Ice storm

A few photos of this morning's beautiful ice.