Apart from the occasional wayward ladybug that makes it into the trailer where my office is at work, there has been a shocking lack of insects out and about for me to look at/document recently. It might have something to do with this:
Snowy
It snowed for several hours on Saturday and Sunday followed with a frigid wind that ripped across the prairie and cut right through your clothes. Methinks it may be a little too cold out for insects! Soon though. Spring is coming soon, and I expect it to be AMAZING, an explosion of life and green and beauty. I can’t wait!
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The Dragonfly Woman 
Now you understand what those of us who have lived in regions of true seasonality have known all of our lives. Spring cannot come soon enough and when it does it is truly glorious! Even if you are not a flower gazer, the spring ephemerals will stop you in your tracks – of course up here in Michigan we have to wait about six weeks longer than you do in NC. And there really is no way of describing the GREEN-ness of Spring.
I always loved the line from Frost: “Nature’s first green is gold”.
The sheer number of shades of green, including the initial gold-blushed greens, that appear in the Spring is just amazing.
I can’t wait to see it!
I have always LOVED photographing flowers, so I’m very excited to see everything come back. Leaves, flowers, insects, amphibians… I plan to photograph the heck out of everything!
That’s something I wonder, what happens to insects during winter? Since it’s more or less always warm where I live, there are insects all year round.
They overwinter in some stage or another, but what that stage is (egg, nymph, larva, pupa, or adult) depends a lot on the species. You likely have seasons where there are more things out and about that others even where you live, though you might not notice that one species has disappeared for a little while when there are so many other insects still around!
Well, mosquitoes are an all-year-round plague, so I don’t know when is their low season, if there is one. Butterflies are more common during the Summer, but you can still see them at other times. I do have noticed that when it’s dry I see less insects though. :-)
I think that’s normal for your part of the world. You’ve got a lot of insects there BECAUSE there’s a lot of water, so it’s understandable that they might dwindle a bit in numbers during dry seasons. I’m a little envious though! While I thoroughly enjoyed the snow last weekend, I miss my bugs…
Yes, I know humidity is one of insects’ best friends! Regardless, since I live in the tropics, there are a variety of insects all over the place and they grow to humongous sizes too. I admit I am not a fan of cockroaches or mosquitoes. I’m ok with ants, butterflies, stick insects, ladybugs and phasmids. :-)
I imagine few people really love either mosquitoes or cockroaches, though you do have some really spectacular roaches in the tropics! I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing some of those.
Well….., they’re spectacular and scary! LOL! Particularly if they fly. If it makes you happy, I’ll try to photograph one for you, but I do admit, the thought grosses me out. They’re super fast too.
No need to photograph roaches for me if they bother you! I can always look them up online. I’m weird in that roaches don’t bother me very much and I think they’re super interesting, but I know they’re not for everyone.
I don’t understand. What is that white stuff in the picture? Never seen anything like it, here in Florida. But if it makes the cool bugs go away, I can’t imagine wanting to see it! You keep the white stuff, I’ll keep the bugs.
That white stuff is called “snow.” It’s made of cold, frozen water in crystalline form. :) Have you really never gotten it in your part of Florida? I suppose this shouldn’t be a complete shock, but it still surprises me a little.
I’m firmly in the 0 to 0.1 inches range on that map, and I’ve never seen this mythical 0.1.
Supposedly, it snowed in north Florida when I was three and dad was so excited he took us all on a car trip up to St. Augustine to see it, but I have no memory of this. He likes to bring it up anytime I say I haven’t seen snow. “Well, yes you have, remember when…” No, dad, I don’t remember much that happened when I was three years old, and it doesn’t count!
So, the only snow I’ve seen was on TV. Oh, and on mountain peaks as I flew over them on the plane trip to San Francisco and back, but from that distance, the TV probably counts more. : – )
I should make you jealous and go take a census of bugs I can see here in the dead of winter. : – )
I’m not sure I entirely agree with that map as the area I lived in in AZ is in the .1-12 inch range (totally not true in the valley, though there was a fair amount of snow in the mountains) and the area in Colorado where I lived got 14″ of precip a year and is in the 48+” a year category, but yeah, I could see how you wouldn’t get much snow in your area. I hope you get to see it someday! It really is magical. To see a few times. If it doesn’t last very long… I actually don’t like snow, but it snows just infrequently enough in my part of NC that it seems amazing every time, and it never last long.