I’m a botanist in an area where you can do useful botanizing more or less year-round. I’ve found I miss the idea of an off-season, when I can focus on all the various indoor tasks without feeling like I’m missing something by not going outside.
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If you don’t have a backlog of indoor tasks that ought to be done, I envy you but don’t have useful advice. :-)
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A lot of your responses are all about birdwatching. And I do some of that, but to be honest, I find bugs and little crawlies so much more interesting. I think I might be on the ADD spectrum, but by looking at tiny moving things up close, I can see in one afternoon more species of those than I can birds in a month. I know I don’t have the big lenses for good birding, but I also don’t have the committed patience.
Don’t get me wrong. I love birds and they are beautiful to see. But the little guys? The number of ‘Gee, I never heard of that one before’ moments is pretty hard to resist.
FTR, I know that I live in a very rich area for birding. The Niagara Escarpment is a major migration highway. Heck, my town even has a raptor observatory tower at a park overlooking the town. And my brother is a pretty serious birder! It’s all about the thrill of discovery for me though. And there’s no way birds can compete with ‘Tiny Town Treasures’ on that score.
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If you don’t want to/don’t feel confident IDing, maybe consider annotating observations. I do this sometimes because it helps me find observations that don’t show up when I’m filtering otherwise and because it’s something I can contribute to almost all of the observations that are missing them…I have no idea what that is, but I can tell whether it’s an adult moth or a caterpillar or whether it has flowers.
If you pick a group you want to get to know better, it’ll also give you a good look at the characteristics of that group, especially if you include Research Grade observations without annotations.
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I put the cats’ food down and know exactly where I can photograph ants three minutes later!
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There are still insects present in the winter, you just have to look a bit harder to find them. Checking under bark is a good way to locate hibernating insects (ichneumonids, vespids, and various lepidopterans among others all overwinter as adults) and these may temporarily resume activity on warm days. In addition to non-insect arthropods, some insects (especially beetles and heteropterans) remain somewhat active year-round under logs and rocks. There are also a few families that are primarily or exclusively active in cold weather (Capniidae, Allocapniidae, Trichoceridae, and Boreidae come to mind). If it’s too cold outside, there are also plenty of species that live indoors year-round or enter homes during wintertime to avoid freezing.
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I do SO agree with Broacher, it’s those “little guys” (together with the flora) that make my photographic hunts such a rich delight and constant journey of discovery. I too adore birds… and mammals and everything else that makes up the variegated web of nature… but arthropods have been my passion since I could pronounce the word and even before, so when they begin to dwindle and fade in autumn, I feel a slight twinge of panic at the thought of getting through the next six months (here in mountain Italy) without them. I’m not a great fan of hunting them under bark or stones as during cold weather disturbing them during hibernation would probably be a death sentence for them and it’s trying to photograph (and ID) them alive and going about their daily life that really sparks my enthusiasm.
There are some great ways of engaging time during the long winter months here, and I’ll also be going back through the thousands of images in my archives looking for those from previous years worth posting to iNat. I KNOW you shouldn’t wish time away, but I just can’t help counting the days left before next spring and the call of the long (tick filled) grass.
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There’re still many organisms to observe, including many arthropods hidden under leaves. You live in a warmer climate than I do, so can’t see why there would be less of them. But for iNaturalist it’s much easier to switch depending on a season, no fun in hyperfocusing on one group year along, it’s a way to burn out, now it’s mostly shrooms. Also, many places are under snow for a month now, so maybe it’s a reason to appreciate what time you had with moving things.
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Yes, bugs will be very few in winter. But there will be many other things: mosses and lichens are not seasonal, they can be found all year round. Also quite a few fungi will be there, especially the ones with perennial fruit bodies. And some of them might even have fungicolous fungi on them! Also, though more difficult to find, there will be some myxomycetes left over after the autumn.
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I hear you. The vast majority of my observation list is dragon- and damselflies. Those little suckers can stay active a remarkably long time, though. I posted some observations from around this time last year, taken at the local botanic gardens. The spreadwings were behaving like it was still June…
Take a flight to south america, it’s summer here :]
There were plenty of critters out last weekend, I assure you.
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Yes. Sigh…
Trying to learn lichens and mosses helped a little, but I’ve kind of stalled on those. I’ve been going back to some of my old observations and adding “value” to them (adding annotations, adding them to Traditional projects where appropriate, marking them as can’t be improved where appropriate, etc.). I’ve just started IDing Unknowns in Mexico, because I was privileged to visit there in September and I’m enthralled with the biodiversity. Beginning to research a trip to Australia to visit my sister and go iNatting. And … oh, I don’t know - sleeping a lot? eating too much? picking up my knitting again after 6 months or more? I guess I’m preparing for hibernation.
ETA: Ideas: Figure out the iNat Discord server and participate. Set an outrageous target for numbers of IDs - can I make 20,000 more IDs by the end of the winter (and only make IDs on Needs ID observations)? Develop some self-discipline and learn taxa that I always skip over because they are too “hard.” Start pulling together a key with photos to some taxon somewhere that doesn’t have great field guides (but which one?). What else?
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I just find cellar spiders in my basement and, frankly, I’m a little bored with them. Also, I’d really rather not look up in the shower and discover one living there, directly overhead.
I do think a White-footed Mouse has moved in, as well, judging by the scurrying I heard overhead last night.
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I can sign the recommendation to look out for the really small things in winter. Mites and Springtails can be found year-round, many spiders, too. Many mite and springtail species are absolutely gorgeous! Some arthropods are only active during winter months and are worth to look out for as these are usually completely under-observed.
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That’s a good one. And I mean to do some. Also, maybe work on some blog pages about subjects that I think might do for some consolidating around here. I was thinking of starting with ‘Super Macro Photography for the Cheap Seats’.
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I can sign the recommendation to look out for the really small things.
YES! I was sitting with my husband one evening when he said, “There’s a bug on the table.” And I assumed it was a little nothing and came to pick it up to put outside. (This sounds so kind but I should add to meet its fate with the evening lizard crew.)
On a whim and only because my phone was on the table too, I decided to look at it with the camera zoom feature first, because it was teeny and my eyes cannot see as well anymore. I was stunned when a complex pattern appeared, so of course I did a whole shoot with the beetle and ended up letting it run free in the living room to meet its fate with the indoor lizard crew.
Long story short it ended up being some rarely seen beetle and now one of the images I took that evening is the reference image for that taxon.
So definitely pay attention to the smallest bugs. If you derive thrill from the “never seen that before” it adds a layer when you realize how complex or patterned they are and largely unseen to the enormous human eye.
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As others have mentioned, not all of the arthropods are gone in winter. But I’d like to add that not all of them are in deep hiding under bark, etc. Depending on conditions, a surprising number can be found on top of snow.
For the past few years, each winter in Nova Scotia I have made a regular effort to go out and try to find bug friends on snow and then add them to the Arthropods on Snow project. It’s great fun!
A couple of striking ones that are commonly found in North America are the vibrant green Tetragnatha viridis - that one stands out really well against the snow, and the weird, wingless Boreus (Snow scorpionflies) - a bit more of a challenge because they’re so tiny.
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I’m conflating my memories. My husband thankfully is onhand to remind me that the one we saw in the evening was purple and much smaller. He is right. It was this one. (He also accuses me of moving to dispatch it but that is a falsehood.)
But both of these were indoor observations I initially dismissed without looking more closely and both ended up being tremendously more exciting when I zoomed. So I agree with the recommendation to go smaller.
And maybe, during darkest days of winter, turn on a light, open a window, and see who flies in?
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This is my third summer looking for dragonflies. During the winter months, I join a worldwide dragonfly group on Facebook just so I can see them. There are some really beautiful species in other parts of the world. I also just picked up a good book on wasps from the library. I use winter to walk more and go birding more.
I’ve been thinking. I’m a ten minute walk from a lovely park on the shore of Lake Ontario. A 5 minute drive from a wetland reserve, and a 5 minute drive from a beautiful side trail of the world famous Bruce Trail.
Yes, it’s true. Gratitude is what changes what you have into what you need.
Thanks for the reminder!
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