Puns and Serendipity

It's April!

And April showers bring...

 Just checking if you were paying attention to yesterday's blog. If you were, you know what this is, and get my sorry pun.

A lot of things are sprouting and blooming in the backyard now, but aside from the daffodils, they are mostly little, subtle things.

 One of the reasons I am such a terrible gardener is because when things sprout in my flower beds I am never sure if they are something I planted there on purpose.

The squirrels are still able to find plenty of leftover fruits from last fall.

Today being April Fool's Day, I came upon a site that had asked several photographers to show their best accidentally good pictures. One of the photographers said that, "We wildlife photographers have so little control over our subjects that, to be honest, pretty much everything we do is a mistake." I guess what I do counts as wildlife photography - bugs are wild, and they are life - and while I get what he is saying, I wouldn't say that everything we do is a mistake. A lot of what I get is down to lucky timing, but the pictures aren't mistakes, I intend to take the shot. Whether or not the bug cooperates and lets me get the shot I want is not up to me, though. They have a lot more control than I do, and more choice in the matter. Add in the wind, and whatever weird variables, and I count myself lucky when I get the shot I want. However, there is a great deal of serendipity involved, even if you don't consider just finding the bugs serendipitous (which it is, for the most part, even though I am looking for them). Take this picture:

I was trying to take a picture of the vine, and that tiny bug just wandered in. Of course I then tried to take a good picture of the bug, but after photobombing my vine shot, it disappeared and wouldn't let me get a better bug shot.

If you are a control freak, insect macrophotography is not for you. Unless you use dead insects.

Anyway, speaking of the daffodils (we were earlier. Briefly)...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what it is, other than it is in the order Hemiptera.

When I walked over to this particular daffodil cluster, which has two flowers, there was a different cool bug on each flower, and I didn't know which to take a picture of first, because the chances of them both sticking around for me to get shots of both seemed rather slim. And yet, they did, because this was on the other flower:

 Hoverfly

 This fly was in one of those daffodils later.

There was a little bit of rain in the morning, so everything was damp, which is nice for springtails:

 This one...

 ... and this one were on the same rock.

 Moth blending in pretty well on tree bark.

 Speaking of serendipity... (we were, earlier)...

I have this little bug ornament in my rock garden, which I bought because I thought it was funny. Somehow it got knocked over, because I found it upside-down today - I don't know if it was the crazy wind, or if it was a squirrel or other animal. Anyway...

I never noticed before that there is a hole in the bottom. Apparently some wasps did notice, however, because there is a wasps' nest inside - which I would never have known about if the bug hadn't been knocked upside-down!

We had company over for dinner tonight, and because it was a nice evening, I left the porch light on after they left, to see if any bugs would be attracted to it.

They were:

 Standing in line? Bug really have no regard for personal space.

 Random Backyard Bug Related Thing That Is Not a Bug:

Insect eggs of some kind. They look kind of old, maybe from last year.


Arachnid Appreciation:
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And speaking of unexpected things...

 This jumping spider jumped on my hand...

... and this one...

 ... was just trying to grab me.

 It was not a jumping spider, though.

 This particular kind of spider (I really should find out what it is) lies down on the branch and tries to look like it's not there.

 Then it walks around a bit and finds a new spot (at least, this is how it behaves when I am trying to take a picture of it. I think it spends a lot more time in one place during its usual life, because it is an ambush predator, and catches its prey by staying still and looking like part of the tree). Anyway, you can see the thread it trails behind it as it walks. Even a spider that does not use a web to catch prey will do this, as a safety line in case it falls or has to jump off the branch to evade a photographer.

 More trailing thread.

 Even jumping spiders will use that trail line (no, it's not visible here. I'm just saying).