The Bugs in the Backyard: Holding On Tight

March is going out like a lion and it is ROARING. I don't know what the wind speeds were today (I have an anemometer, but I don't know where it is. And I think it needs a new battery), but they were FIERCE. I think we have had tropical storms here with less wind. I kind of got the feeling that a lot of the bugs I saw today were hanging on for dear life. I don't know how any of them were able to fly in such weather (It really didn't seem to bother the bumblebees in the rock garden, but maybe the house was working as a windbreak for them. They just blithely bumbled from flower to flower). It was a warm day, though, and so the wind was not painful and bone chilling. It actually felt kind of exciting to be out in it, although I was nervous about some of the trees' violent thrashings.

There is no doubt about it, spring is in the air.

And it is growing in my backyard:

Pussywillows

Not just leaves on the crab apple, but flower buds, too.

The Canada mayflowers have sprouted. I wonder if they will wait until May to bloom.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I think this is a thrips, but I am not sure. I looked up thrips and it says they have wings, which this does not have. But then something else I read seemed to imply that not all thrips have wings. Anyway, that's what it looks like to me.

It was tiny, and wouldn't stop moving, so I didn't get any really good pictures of it, showing both the front and the back ends in focus. But I got some okay shots showing one or the other.

Sharing the same rock with the thrips was this moth.

And another on a nearby tree. Again today I saw a lot of these moths. I don't know how they were able to fly in that wind, but they did. Still, some of them - this one and the one above, looked like they were hunkered down against the wind.

As did some of the bees I saw:

I spotted this one clinging to the kitchen window.

Then when I went out to get the mail I found this one hanging onto a daffodil for dear life.

And this one was doing the same thing. This is a really tiny bee.

Love that eye.

It then crawled inside the daffodil, and when I looked in, I saw that there were already two other bees in there.

There was a bit of pushing and shoving.

Remember last week there was a bee that I thought had died inside a daffodil. Well, now I am not so sure. It stayed in there for a couple of days, which seemed to reinforce that it had died, but then it appeared to have moved to a new spot inside. And the next day it was gone. And I have seen other bees in there, and they crawl in and just stay very still. Of these three bees, one of them didn't move while I was observing them, even though the other two were scuffling around and over it. So maybe they can just be in there, feeding on nectar, for days?

Okay, what else have we got today...

Click beetle hiding in tree bark

Some sort of stinkbug, I think, not hiding on the side of the house. I have seen these before, but always way at the end of summer. I wonder if they overwinter as adults and this one is just emerging.