Flowers = Bees

Yesterday was a lion, and today was a lamb. It was beautiful. I love springtime.

Today the rock garden finally became the bug magnet it should be. There were bees aplenty buzzing from flower to flower. It was lovely. I didn't get pictures of most of them because they were too fast for me, and those pictures I did get were mostly out of focus because the lamb of a day still had a bit of a breeze, but I was happy to see so many different kinds of bees there, even if I didn't get even a close look at most of them. But the rock garden is where I found the Backyard Bug of the Day.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I am not sure if this is a wasp or a bee... or something else...

 Bee

 I think this is a sweat bee

 Bumblebee, of course. A huge one, or huge as bumblebees go.

There were other bugs in the rock garden, too:

  A fly

 Several species of ants, though this is the only one I got a picture of.

Actually, what I saw the most of today was those little moths that flit past me as I walk, and mostly land in inaccessible places, but sometimes not. There were a lot of things flitting past today, and most of them were dried leaves, but a lot of them were these moths.

 Here's one that landed where I could see it well.

 I love the little splash of blue on its shoulder... Do moths have shoulders? Also, moths have cool eyes.

 Another one that landed at my feet.

Last fall there was a bush whose leaves turned a really pretty pink, and on a few nice days I found a lot of candy striped leaf-hoppers congregating there. Well, today I looked for candy striped leaf hoppers on the mountain laurel and didn't find any, but when I looked at the buds on that pink-in-the-fall bush, I found a candy striped leaf hopper. I would love to know where it spent the winter.

 The leaf buds are pink in the spring.

And speaking of buds...

 A couple of forsythia flowers have opened, but I found that a couple of buds had holes bored in them. I wonder if something bored its way in, or out?

If you read this blog you probably know how I feel about mourning doves, which is that I cannot stand them. One of the reasons I cannot stand them is their tendency to explode out of a bush (or out from under the front porch) and startle me. Yes, I realize they do this because I have frightened them by suddenly appearing, but it is still a massive overreaction, and no other birds in my backyard do this. If I get too close to other birds, they just fly away. Mourning doves have to make a massive spectacle of it. Anyway, yesterday this happened to me as I walked past a cedar tree in the backyard, and then it happened in the exact same spot again today, which made me wonder if there was something in that tree...

 Yes, there is - a mourning dove nest. It looked a bit like yesterday's winds had damaged it - it's not in the picture, but a big chunk has fallen off. Anyway, I guess I need to avoid that part of the yard for a while if they are nesting there.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I think this is a bowl-and-doily spider, although it didn't have a full bowl-and-doily web.