Tools For Success

 One thing life has taught me is that every task is easier if you have the proper tools to do it. But it has also taught me that you have to work with the tools you have sometimes, and make the best of it.

So, if you're out in the woods with your camera, and you have a zoom lens on it instead of a macro lens with a ring flash, and you see an interesting beetle as the evening is heading toward night, then you're just going to have to take a picture of the beetle with a zoom lens in the fading light and try to get the best picture you can.

Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day:

I think the larger one is a checkered beetle. The smaller one I didn't notice while I was taking the pictures, but since it's there, I feel it should be Backyard Bug of the Day, too. These were on the stump of a tree that snapped during one of our many windstorms over the winter. I think that even though most of the tree is gone, the stump is still running sap, and these could be feeding on sap (or the wood, or other bugs, or...).

I did a cursory bug walk today, finding a surprisingly small number of bugs. Here's the only one I was able to photograph:

The lady beetle was still on the same flower where I last saw it, but today it was inside.

 Edit: I forgot that while we were doing trail work this afternoon a woolly bear caterpillar wandered across the path:

In the woods I found this dead tree branch with insect damage; it would have been under the bark of the tree, but the bark has fallen away. I didn't notice at the time, but it looks like there is a beetle in the upper right of the picture.

There are more signs of spring in the backyard:

Leaves opening on the crabapple tree

Bluets

As I said, the sun was setting as we walked homeward after spending some time in the woods.
 

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I did not find the spider who owned this tiny web, but it was so adorable I had to take a picture of it anyway. Scale is impossible to tell in pictures sometimes; this web is only about an inch across. 

There are a lot of tiny spiders in the woods lately.