Keeping Cool

So here's how things went in my daily search for bugs on this fine spring day. I saw a butterfly out the window (6th species in the last week), but it was flying fast and I knew there was no point in going out after it. I came within about 6 feet of a tiger beetle, about 4 feet of another beetle, about 6 feet of one moth, and twice within about 4 feet of another. A winter firefly landed on the back of my camera (It is unusual to see them fly. Mostly I see them just hanging around on the trunks of trees). And all of those dandelions that yesterday were teeming with bugs?

 This is what they looked like today.

 I did finally find one that was open, with a bug on it.

And that was the only bug I got a picture of on that bug walk. Today was a little bit hot, we hit 80ºF, and in April, when there are no leaves on the trees, there's no shade to escape that, so I wonder if the bugs were sheltering from the heat somewhere. I didn't even see any spring azure butterflies (not in my yard, anyway. But I did see a couple when we went for a bike ride). Yes, there were a lot of bees and wasps in the rock garden, but they were not posing for picture. So, I did a second bug walk early in the evening when we got home from our bike ride, and finally found a Backyard Bug of the Day.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This has definitely been the time for blue bugs of late. I am loving it.

I found this beetle, too, on the trunk of a tree.

 It is quite small, about the size of a pencil lead, but what is most interesting is those tiny dots on it, which I couldn't even see without looking through the magnification of the camera lens...

 I don't know if these are its young, or parasites. It does look like they have eaten a large section of the bristles on the beetle's back. There are more on the other side of the beetle.

I definitely notice that there are bugs with a preference for certain plants. These spindly bugs really like daffodils, particularly these white ones:

 See the proboscis?

 It extended it while I was watching.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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