Strange Visitor

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On a typical May day, I saw a mayfly. The peculiar thing about this is that I live in a dry, pine forest. With 16 inches of precipitation a year, and half of that from snow, you don’t find mayflies. Nevertheless, last month one showed up. Sitting on a fence post, a callibaetis spinner managed to stop by.

You can see in this picture that the countryside here is more conducive to deer than mayflies. I just don’t expect to

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find them on grounds covered with pine needles.

I live 8 miles from the nearest lake, 2 miles from the nearest stream and 400 feet higher in elevation. Can a mayfly spinner make that flight. I don’t think so, but maybe with a good wind. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this fellow perched on my fencepost. I was pretty sure that this was a callibaetis, but was glad to have it confirmed by smarter people than me over on Fly Anglers Online.  Especially Roger Rohrbeck, who has the site. Flyfishing Entomology.

So anyway, even though this little fella had no business being here, this is a lesson to all of us to keep our eyes open. You never know what you may see.