as we started working the backyard, more and more cool bugs were turning up.
tilling the garden and breaking up the rotting tree roots, i found several of these.

huge with eggs, this lady was going nowhere fast. i think these are a variety of longhorn beetles...called Pine Sawyers.

almost every time i went outside, i found a bess beetle. either walking around the yard, or on a log, or in the rotting stump.
i started thinking about the night life of the backyard...what was i missing if i was finding this many beetles during the day?
one night, armed with a little led light and my iphone, i went out into the yard for an adventure.

the rotting stump was full of life!

it was very cool to see, and totally makes me want to set up a sheet with a blacklight some night to see what i can find.
i peeked around the logs that we moved to the side of the yard, some of them were hollow and rotting too.

most of them had wild mushroom growth, and small bugs going wild inside. very cool!

ah spring. with the warmer weather came yardwork. lots of it. longer daylight hours cued the plants to start growing full steam...daffodils came up unexpectedly, and the azalea bushes launched into full pink blooming.
while raking out the red dyed mulch (yuck) all around our house, we started to uncover some cool stuff.
first was a large pupae...

i assume from a sphynx moth or something simliar. unfortunately, he'd gotten a bit of a prick from the rake and was oozing a tiny bit of fluid. i put him back in the yard in the hopes that he'd finish his transformation.

we also dug up a large bombadier beetle. shiny, almost violet iridiscent, with small red spots all over his wings.
he was lovely, but BOY HOWDY he stunk! i mistakenly handled him barehanded trying to get a clearer photo, my hands stunk for a whole day afterward.

giant click beetles started appearing randomly...middle of the day even. i walked out and found this guy on a log, just sitting and enjoying the sun. the logs from the tree hadn't been cut up, and were arranged on one small side of our backyard, providing a nice habitat for lots of wood borers.

birds continued to fledge, and i had to really scout the yard before i let the dogs out to play. this little robin was beside our shed hopping around...i walked him into the alley under the watchful eye of his parents so he wouldn't become a boston terrier snack.

this year i had the opportunity to go sample a few vernal pools for spotted salamanders and larvae.

vernal pools are basically like tidal pools of the woods. they fill up with water in the spring when the rains are heavy, allowing lots of amphibians to lay eggs that hatch before summer comes and the water dries up. they are the perfect breeding ground for invertebrates too, because usually there aren't fish populations to eat em! technically, there are not supposed to be fish in vernal pools. sometimes humans introduce them though, if the pool is big enough.

at the first pool, there were TONS of toad eggs, but not much salamander activity. i did find this guy running around the edge of the pool though.

he's a polydesmid millipede, and pretty harmless. millipedes are decomposers while centipedes are carnivorous hunters. millipedes really won't bite, while centipedes have a pretty gnarly venemous bite...kind of like a flesh rotting bee sting.

i'm always a little hesitant to grab up most millipedes because some species of them excrete a fluid from their exoskeleton as a defense mechanism when they are threatened. this fluid can be really aggrivating to the skin and some people have more abrasive reactions to it.

there were some snakes and turtles to be seen...even some fish. but finding no salamanders, we just tanked on.
the next pool offered up immeadite signs. lots of egg masses, already hatched!

the egg masses feel like jello. dunno why they were green, algae accumulation from ferilization nearby?
wading around, i wasn't finding much until i started scooping up water in the tupperware collection tubs.
then next thing you know....

larvae!

even found some larger ones in a different area of the pool.

overall a good day!