Winter Intects

Have you ever been out snowshoeing or skiing and noticed any insects flying around or hanging out on the snow?

I have. And contrary to what you might think, there are quite a few of them. Especially on milder days later in the winter.

Here are a couple of examples.

 Male Non-biting Midge. While out snowshoeing today and yesterday I saw many, many of these. 

Snow Scorpionfly

A Snow Cranefly (Image from here)

A Stonefly (image from here)

And these are Springtails, also known as Snow Fleas (image from here)

See? All kinds of critters out there in the winter. And seeing the many Midges out and about makes me happy also because it means the swallows will be back soon. 

Yeah!