Popular Hangouts

 I keep trying to take a picture that will illustrate how popular goldenrod is among pollinators, and it's tricky because the insects are constantly moving, and often the plants are moving too, waving in even the slightest breeze. And here's what I managed to capture today:

Four bees and a tiny fly on goldenrod. More on the goldenrod in a bit, but first, some other interesting things.

A little over a week ago I found some feathers and eggs on the ground, from an attack on a birds' nest. One egg was broken, and being devoured by ants, but the other egg was intact. A couple of days ago I noticed that something had broken a hole in the intact egg. The next day that egg was gone, I assumed having been eaten by something. But today I found it:

It had been partially buried, a few feet away from where I originally found it.

There's a slight problem with today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

I chose this insect, which looks somewhat wasp-like, but I believe is actually a fly. But looking at the photos while working on the blog I began to think it looked very familiar, so I looked it up, and it turns out that this was already chosen as Backyard Bug of the Day this year, a couple of months ago. However, I think that the earlier one was a male, and this one is female (I am basing this on the pointy back end, which the other one did not have), so I am going to allow it. The pandemic has turned my brain to mush, and I didn't remember this at first.

Anyway, about the goldenrod... Where there are insects feeding, there will be things to feed on them, like an assassin bug nymph:

... which, to be honest, I may be misidentifying. This could be a plant-feeder.

But this is definitely a scene of a predatory insect (jagged ambush bug) and potential prey:

I watched the bumblebee work its way along one stem of flowers, and down the next, getting closer and closer to the predator...

... and then it walked all over the ambush bug and moved right back up the stem, unharmed.

Also popular today were the autumn joy sedum flowers, which are beginning to bloom:

Bumblebee and sweat bee

There were mostly bumblebees on these.

Stinkbug

Large milkweed bug nymphs in various instars on milkweed seed pod

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Nursery web spider. This one is definitely not full grown, probably only about half the size it will eventually be. These can pretty reliably be found in this garden bed every summer.

There were two of them.

Flower crab spider