These ARE the Bugs You Are Looking For

May the Fourth be with you. Happy Star Wars Day! Even though I know you're reading this after the fact, this post is about the happenings today in a backyard not far away. The Dark Side has awakened in my backyard.

 Poison ivy...

... and ticks! The two worst things about the outdoors, both showed up in the backyard today. And the ticks were on my lawn chair! Probably plotting to kill me with some horrible disease. Well, I light sabered them, so to speak.

Everything else in the backyard today was from the light side of the force. There was one backyard occurrence today that was particularly delightful. I thought I saw two hummingbirds chase each other across the yard today. My sister saw a hummingbird in her yard yesterday, so I decided I should put up the hummingbird feeders. Now, I have had hummingbird feeders in my backyard on and off for years, and have never actually seen a hummingbird drink from one of them. I do see hummingbirds in my yard every summer; they like to perch on particular trees. They just have never (that I have seen) eaten at the feeders.  However, I figured if they are back in the area, I might as well put the feeders up. I put up three of them, spilled a lot of food, splashed some on myself, made a mess, and figured that it was probably all for nothing. Well, my husband and I were sitting at the picnic table relaxing after doing some yard work and a hummingbird zoomed up to one of the feeders! No, it did not drink, it just checked it out from a couple of different vantage points, but then it zoomed behind my husband and hovered around for a few seconds before taking off. Then a few minutes later another hummingbird zoomed by (not even glancing at the feeder as far as I could tell). No, I didn't get a picture, because I had foolishly brought my camera back in the house. And the hummingbirds have still not eaten from the feeders. But I did get a nice look at one, so it was a happy moment anyway.

By the way, I looked it up, and the first day of my blog last year was April 29th. It was raining (over three inches that day) and in the 40s, so now I feel like I shouldn't have been complaining about the weather for the last month, because last year was colder. Except that I am a tiny bit of a weather geek, so I know that day was an anomaly, and most of last April wasn't that cold. Anyway, it wasn't a particularly auspicious day to start a blog about my backyard, but it has worked out anyway.

Aside from the appearance of the Dark Side, today was a wonderful day in the backyard. It was in the 80s, which is usually too hot for me, but it wasn't at all humid, so it was really quite lovely. Today the difference between the overnight low and the daytime high was over 40ºF - the low was 40ºF and the high was 83º (I don't remember the decimals). There was a lot of insect activity, but most of it was unphotographable, because the bugs were flying with great energy today. A lot of bees and wasps, a fair few moths, another butterfly that I didn't get a close enough look at (possibly a hairstreak based on size and coloring), and who knows what else.

The crab apple is just about to bloom... maybe tomorrow?

 And waaaaaaay up near the top of the peach tree there's one flower completely open. Look closely and you can see there's bees up there looking for nectar. And on a lower branch another flower is opening up.

 Jack in the pulpit coming up...

 Ferns unfurling...

I had quite a challenge today getting the Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Several times lately as I have been walking around the yard I have seen a flying, red blur near the ground. See the flying red blur? They move fast, and never seem to land, so I haven't even been able to see what they are, much less get a picture. I could never even tell what kind of bug it was.

Well, today there were several of them in one area, and they were actually landing for a few seconds occasionally, so I thought maybe I could get a shot of one. If anyone had been watching me I am sure they would have laughed, because I must have looked foolish. It's tricky, though, to try to follow a tiny thing that flies in an erratic pattern near your feet, that dashes away as soon as you get close. None of my pictures were from a close vantage point (from a macrophotography perspective), and most of them were of the bugs while they were in the air (frankly, I can't believe that worked. But they do hover a little bit). Given that, I think I did a pretty good job...

... But these pictures definitely require some zooming in. The wings are just a blur...

 Have I mentioned how annoying it is to take pictures of things at ground level?

 Here's the above zoomed in - you can see the wings on this one.

Another zoomed-in shot. By the way, these pictures are probably not all of the same bug. There were several in the area, and I was taking pictures of whatever I could. I had to follow the bugs to an extent, but I may have switched bugs a few times.

 Another fun thing about these bugs: when they do land, it is usually under something. By fun I obviously mean annoying.

 Watching them zoom around just above the ground, and landing on things that are completely uninteresting (which is to say, not flowers, but the ground or dead leaves), I had the same kind of thoughts that I had when watching the bees in the rock garden, wondering what they are seeing, and what they are looking for. How do these bugs see the world? And what do they seek on the ground among the dead leaves and dirt?

Random Bugs (Hmmm... there are a lot more of these than I thought):

 Craneflies

 Funny to see these two on the same plant - they are probably both looking for the same thing - aphids.

The ant came down to investigate the ladybug...

 ... and the ladybug told the ant to bug off.

 Six spotted tiger beetle. Either there were quite a few of these in the yard today, or one was following me.

 I know you can't tell from the picture, but this was a pretty big ant.

 Winter fireflies

 Remember last week or so, when there was a ladybug that I said should be called a checkered beetle, because it looked checkered, and I said that the actual checkered beetle was not checkered? Well, here's a checkered beetle (it turns out there are several species of checkered beetles. None of them - in my books, anyway - are checkered). This is the first time I have ever gotten a good picture of one. So, Huzzah!

Okay, one last Star Wars reference:

That's no space station - that's the moon!

 Lots of spiders today for Arachnid Appreciation:
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A spider with the remains of several meals.

Its next meal is at the bottom here, still alive.

 I think this spider tries to look like a bit of debris in the middle of its web.

 That spider was close neighbors of two others on the same plant. It's not a good picture, but I think you can see all three of them, all different species.

 Here's one...

 ... and here's the other.

This spider was rather charming.

I spotted this set of wings on the trellis, and thought there was something odd about them - it looked like the bug (a brown lacewing?) was in an awkward position. I figured that a spider had hold of it, but I couldn't see a spider.  Of course I had to investigate...

 ... And it was as I suspected. Except that I didn't know that hole was there. Very convenient for a spider that catches its prey by grabbing it.

 I think I may have accidentally drowned a spider when I filled the watering can.

Not a good day to be a brown lacewing.