Welcoming Party

I've been away for a couple of days, and as we were driving up the street on our way home I noticed my neighbor's tree came into full bloom while we were away, so I had a few moments of hope that maybe I would find some flowering trees in my backyard, but no, that is not what I found. Instead of blossoms emerging, I got this:

 Gypsy moth caterpillars emerging from their egg mass. Noooooooooooooooo!!!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. I tried looking it up, but was unable to identify it.

Other Bugs:

 Winter firefly taking flight

 A patch of daffodils in the backyard was covered with ants.

 Sweat bee

 Twice-stabbed lady beetle

 Ant

Winter fireflies

I think I found more spiders than insects today. Arachnid Appreciation:
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Again jumping spiders were abundant:

 Jumping spider. You can't tell relative size from these pictures, but this one is tiny; it must be young.