Sunshine and Flowers

I am not going to talk about the weather... I am not going to talk about the weather... I am not going to talk about the weather, which is abnormally warm these days... I am not going to talk about the weather, and how it was only a couple of degrees above freezing this morning, but warmed up almost 50º into the 80s this afternoon... I am not going to talk about the weather, and how we need some rain, but aren't going to get any any time soon... I am not going to talk about the weather...

I am, however, going to inundate you with pictures of my gorgeous, fully blooming crab apple tree, even more than yesterday. To justify a few of these pictures I will point out that there are bugs in some of them, if you can spot them. It is, in fact, hard to take a picture of the crab apple tree without bugs, because there are almost as many bees on the tree as flowers. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there are a lot of bees. They mostly move too fast to really see them in any detail, but it is obvious from the variation in sizes of the blurs that buzz by that there are many species of bees feasting on crab apple blossom nectar. And speaking of buzz, when you stand by the tree you can hear it, the buzz of hundreds of bees. The whole thing reminds me of what you learn about atoms in chemistry class, about electrons, and the way they are theorized to move around the nucleus of the atom, which I can't explain, but it's what I think about when I watch the bees zoom around the tree. For a person who is afraid of bees my crab apple tree would be a nightmare, but I think it is wonderful.

On with the pictures:

 Wait, that's not a crab apple tree. That's a dogwood tree, also beginning to bloom. Oddly, this tree is only blooming at the top. That's fine with me, I am allergic to dogwood flowers.

Here's the crab apple tree!

 There is a probably a bee in this picture.

There is a bee in this picture.

There's a bee in this picture.

 There's a bee in this picture.

 There's two bees in this picture.

And this picture.

 Okay, this one is kind of obvious. (This shot is zoomed in. Most of these flowers are above my head, and I couldn't get this close for the shot).

If you've got three minutes or so to spare, and you need to chill out, click HERE to watch a video of the bees buzzing around the crab apple tree. Watch closely, because the bees are small and fast. Unfortunately, you won't get the full experience, because you can't hear the buzzing most of the time (though you can hear some pretty bird songs). For that you are just going to have to go outside yourself, and find a flowering tree.

In other flower news, the Canada mayflower is starting to bloom. Because it's May.

Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day:

 Backyard Bug of the Day #1: I chose this hopper as Backyard Bug of the Day on my facebook page, but I had forgotten about another bug I had taken pictures of that I thought would be a good BBotD, and now I am conflicted, and don't want to hurt either bug's feelings (because I am weird that way), so it'll be co-bugs today. First time this year. I am ashamed of my indecisiveness. But this is a better picture than I normally get of this kind of hopper (I don't know if it's a leaf hopper, tree hopper, or plant hopper, so we're just going to go with hopper, okay? I know it is a Hemiptera, so I get partial credit).

 Backyard Bug of the Day #2 This one is just cute. I am pretty sure it's a beetle (Order: Coleoptera!), but I haven't even tried to find out what time. It was a busy evening. Anyway, it's pretty small, maybe not even 1/4 inch long.

 Also, I got a lot more pictures of this bug than off the hopper. This isn't the greatest picture of the bug, but I like the picture of the tree bark.

The backyard continues to be beetle-rific:

 This is a very interesting pair. Assuming that they are mating, and this is not a case of predation or other kind of attack, there is an impressive degree of sexual dimorphism in these beetles.

 I presume that the female is on the bottom. She is not only much bigger than the male, but their coloration is very different.

I didn't get a good picture showing this, but the (presumed) male is very plain, and the female is patterned.

 I think this is a bee.

Cranefly. This and the hopper are the only bugs I got pictures of today that were not beetles or bees.

I saw a lot of butterflies, but none of them wanted their picture taken.

Backyard Bug Behavior Video! Click HERE to see a ladybug laying eggs.

A couple of weird things:

 I have no idea what this is. I would feel really stupid if it's just bird poop, which it resembles, but I think it is something else.

 Something has sealed itself up between these leaves.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

Crow with rye.

Facepalm Photo of the Day:

 A rose breasted grossbeak landed in this tree and began to sing while I was standing nearby. It was a striking view, with the blue sky, the spring-green leaves, and the black, white and pink bird. I took several pictures and then realized that I had forgotten to reset the camera after just taking pictures of something in deep shadows, so the camera was not set right for taking a picture in the bright sunlight. I quickly reset the camera, and just as I went to take another picture of the bird, it flew away. You can see it exiting the scene in the upper right.

 This chickadee did the Millennium Falcon thing to me, where it flew right at me and went over my head and disappeared. Except it didn't really disappear, it landed in the crab apple tree. It was eating something there, but I don't know if it was bugs, part of the flowers, or leftover crab apples from last year.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 HA! I managed to get one more picture of the crab apple flowers in here!