Dandy Dandelions

You know how I am always haranguing everyone to like bugs, or at least respect them if they can't like them? Well, there's something else you should like and respect that for some reason I am unable to fathom many people hate. And that is dandelions. I don't understand why people hate them because they are pretty, but mostly I don't understand the whole pristine lawn thing. I don't understand why anyone would waste their time and strain their backs on the pointless exercise of pulling up dandelions - they'll just grow back, because you're never going to get the whole root - and I am firmly opposed to spraying your yard with chemicals designed to kill weeds. I don't know why people don't just leave them alone - they have their season, you can eat the greens (I tried them once. They were good. They taste like leaves), the flowers are pretty, and blowing the seeds is fun. But there is a movement lately encouraging people to leave the dandelions alone for a more important reason. Dandelions bloom early in the spring, when very little else is blooming, so they provide an early food source for the massively important bees. You know how much we need bees. You know they are in trouble. So the easiest thing in the world that you can do to help them is just to not make the effort to kill that early food source that will sustain them until the food crops that you want them to pollinate are in bloom. Lawns, particularly pristine, weedless lawns, are vast wastelands from a bee's point of view. Leave those little, yellow oases for them.

Speaking of which...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Very pointy. Enjoying one of the three dandelions currently blooming in my yard. I wish there were more.

Today I was feeling very cross, which led to me standing in the middle of my backyard, shouting at the wind to just quit for five freaking minutes. It didn't, which led to some difficulty in taking this picture:

 This moth was on a slender, young tree, that moved quite a bit in the wind. This is as close as I was able to get before the moth flew away, and most of my shots were out of focus because the tree was moving. Once again there were a lot of these little moths flying around today. I don't want to say I am getting bored with them, but... I am getting bored with having a lot of nondescript, brown moths, and very few other more interesting bugs. There weren't even any candy striped leaf hoppers today, and the temperature was in the 60s (though it felt colder because of the wind, wind, wind, wind, wind).

I didn't get outside to do my bug walk until latish in the afternoon, because I had other things I needed to deal with first, but when I looked out the windows I could see quite a few bumblebees in the rock garden. However, when I finally got outside, this was the only one there, basking on the side of the house.

I had a frustrating day, for a number of reasons, and the more frustrating things that happen to you, the more annoying each new one becomes. So this bug was really frustrating:

 It is a little bee, I think, and it was crawling around on the trunk of a tree. I kept trying to focus on it to get a picture, and it kept moving around before I could. I would pull away, it would stop walking, and when I tried again, it would start walking. I could make it stop by putting my finger in front of it, but I didn't want a picture of my finger, and it would always start walking when I had to use my hand to try to focus the camera. I don't know how many pictures I shot that were horrible, but this is the best one I got, so you can guess what the others were like. Anyway, in my state of frustration, I had an angry thought that it would be better if bugs who don't want their picture taken would just FLY AWAY and put an end to the encounter, rather than frustrate me by sticking around so that I will keep trying to get a good shot. I am annoyingly tenacious. Annoying to myself more than the bug, perhaps. Here's the thing, little bug: I could have squished you at any time. I didn't, so obviously I am not going to hurt you. So just sit still and let me take your picture!

Bad picture, but you can get an idea of how small this bee (wasp? fly?) is by comparing with the ant. Although, that's not really that helpful, is it, because ants come in a variety of sizes. Well, this ant is on the small side of medium, does that help?

My bug walk was frustrating from the moment I walked out the back door today. Before I went out I was washing my hands at the kitchen sink, looking out the window as I did so, and saw what I think was a butterfly. It might have been a moth, but I think it was a small butterfly, something like a hairstreak, that size anyway. There was an enchanting moment when it flitted past a sparrow that was sitting in a bush, and the sparrow watched it go by. I watched it, too, and hurried to dry my hands and grab the camera, which was sitting there, ready to go out, and I hoped that when I got out there I would still be able to see the butterfly, but no such luck. It had disappeared, as they so often do. This is why I was so frustrated with all the little, brown moths. I want butterflies now! It's spring, isn't it?

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Jumping spider