The Bugs in the Backyard: Leaves!

I knew today was going to be a buggy day in the backyard just by looking out the window; there was a swarm of gnats flying around in front of the house. Of course, a swarm of gnats is not really something that inspires you to want to go outside, is it? But you know I went out, and today was the second day in a row with temperatures in the 70s, and today I found the greatest variety of bugs in my backyard so far this year.

Here's the best thing in my backyard at the moment–leaves! The flowering crab apple is getting leaves!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Assassin bug. I saw a few of these today. This one was on a forsythia bloom.

And I found a couple on this pine sapling.

This sawfly landed on the pine sapling, too. Is it bad that I wanted the assassin bug to eat it? I don't like to play favorites in the bug eat bug struggle for survival, but that sawfly probably was there to lay eggs, and its offspring could devour that little sapling's needles. If that is a female, I don't know.

There were a lot of bees in the rock garden again today, flitting among the creeping myrtle flowers. There are a couple of techniques that can be used to take pictures of the bees in that situation. One is to try to follow a bee around in the hopes that it will land and you can get a picture of it before it flits to another flower. This is hardly ever successful. Another technique is to stay in one spot and hope that bees land near you and you can get a picture before they flit off to other flowers. This is also hardly ever successful. Needless to say, I didn't get pictures of many of the bees:

A more successful technique is to look for a bee that is resting somewhere, and hope it stays there long enough to get a picture.

This bee actually seemed to be napping inside the First Dandelion of the Year.

Another one, later in the day

Note about the amount of bugs I found today... I raked a small part of my front yard (not where the snakes hang out), and it is a part of the yard where I leave the leaves over the winter for whatever wildlife wants to spend the winter in the leaf litter, and then I rake them up in the spring. I keep my camera nearby because usually when I do the raking I uncover a few interesting insects, but today when I did my raking I didn't see any insects at all in the leaf litter. I was disappointed. And I don't know if I just missed seeing them, if nothing spent the winter there (which I think is a kind of bad sign for bugs) or if the last two days of really nice weather made them all move on before this afternoon. I probably just missed them... Anyway, tomorrow is supposed to be cold again, so fortunately for the insects who will be changing their minds about being out of the leaf litter for spring, I left the pile on the lawn and haven't hauled it away yet.

Remember that sparkly egg mass that I posted a picture of the other day?

It hatched.

Caterpillars. I don't know what kind. I also don't know what they are going to eat, as there are no leaves yet. I'll keep an eye on that tree to see if any of them stick around; they will be easier to identify when they get bigger.

A couple of winter fireflies in a tree hole

Ants have no respect for personal space.

Gnat

I have a rule. I think it is a fair rule; the rule states that any bug that lands on me has to pose for pictures. Hardly any bugs follow this rule. Like this weevil:

It landed on my shoulder, which is a place I can't even photograph, and it would not sit still. I moved it to this rock, and it still would not sit still for a picture.