Blooms!

I saw two insects immediately upon walking out my front door today to go get the mail: a wasp on the porch steps, and a fly on the walkway in front of the steps, so I knew that today would be a day for doing a bug walk. But then as I was walking back up the front walk with the mail I realized that I would have to get my camera right away.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 As I was walking past the rock garden I spotted a couple of small milkweed bugs on a rock. When I came back out with my camera, I could only see one...

 ... but I quickly realized that there were quite a few of them, crawling in and out of the dried leaves that accumulated among the plants and rocks over the winter.

 You can just barely tell, but there are two here, one of them just visible under the leave litter (there was a bit of an altercation between these two).

There were also a couple of springtails on the rock.

When I finally went out to do my bug walk about an hour later, to my very great surprise I found the first blooms of spring:

This is a female flower on the hazelnut bush. It is a tiny, very unshowy flower, but it doesn't have to be showy, because it is wind pollinated.

 Here is a female flower (top), and male flowers (bottom) with a leaf bud in between. The male flowers produce pollen, which is carried by the wind to female flowers, preferably on the other bush in order to have a DNA exchange.

 Another tree coming into bloom. I think this is a black birch.

I didn't really find much else in the insect world today:

 A few candy striped leaf hoppers.

 Two winter fireflies

 And when we came home this evening, this was on the storm door.

I do have a couple of spiders, one of which has a story that will freak you out if you are an arachnophobe, so... skip this if you are afraid of spiders. Or planning to visit my house. Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Late last night (past midnight, so it counts for today's blog), I was sitting on the couch and saw a spider scurry past. I watched where it was going and saw it climb...

 ... into my shoe, which was sitting on the floor next to the couch. I like spiders, but not in my shoes. And spiders in shoes are not in a good place. If I hadn't seen it crawl in there, I might have stuck my foot in there, and either the spider would be squished, or I would get bitten, or both. Not happy outcomes. Fortunately, what I did instead was get my camera. What you see here is the spider crouching between my shoes, because one was resting on top of the other. When I picked up the shoe on top, the spider scampered away... Under the couch. I'll admit that I don't feel comfortable with the thought that there is a spider under the couch, because sometimes spiders end up crawling on top of the couch when I am sitting here, and, well, that's too close for comfort.

I did find a couple of spiders outside, too:

 This one is on a tennis ball atop a garden stake. Missing left front leg.

This one is on the picnic table. Missing right front leg. I think these might be the same species, one male and one female. But I am not sure.