So today at the edge of the woods the sun actually appeared, casting a
spotlight into the shadows. I was poking around with a snow shovel and
stopped to admire a growing cloud of apparently mating winter crane
flies.These are relatively largish insects with long dangly skinny legs
which look suspiciously like Mosquitoes but are actually in the family
Trichoceridae. Many species of this family have no mouth parts as adults.
At first there were about 20 but within minutes their numbers were in the
hundreds. Suddenly the dance was put on hold as a Pacific wren, formerly
known as the Winter wren, suddenly flew up into the cloud of flies, twisting
its head about and snapping up the flying insects. The bird then hunted
those that landed on nearby ferns and even picked up several from the snow
pile I had just made. Once the aerial assault was over, many of the bugs
resumed their mating dance and the wren did not make another flying attack
but picked up those that fell out nearby. I got to wondering how often
these mating parties happen and was the wren waiting for this, or just
lucky? And I guess the large number of players would ensure some successful
hookups occur no matter how many the wren eats.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County