Love Is In the Air

Today was the buggiest day in months, but unfortunately for the sake of photography, most of the bugs I saw today were flying around. I did get some things that I am seeing for the first time this spring, and some behavior in bugs I have been seeing that was interesting. So...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Tiny bee on a crocus. I am so happy to see bees! They make it really feel like spring!

 I thought this was a leaf when I first spotted it. I do a lot of double-takes on my bug walks. I wonder if this stinkbug overwintered in the leaf litter, and just crawled out today.

Now for the interesting bug behaviors...

It is pretty well established that even in the winter, if a day is warm enough I can find candy striped leaf hoppers on the leaves of certain plants in my backyard. This particular tree has at times had quite a lot of them on the dried leaves that remained during the winter:

 Today there were way more than I have ever seen before, and they were clumped in groups–I didn't get a picture, because they were all really flighty today, but at one point I saw six or seven together on the same leaf.

 I soon figured out why there were so many congregating together on this tree: it's mating season, and they are looking for mates.

 I found several mating pairs.

 I also found a different species of leaf hopper. And if you look closely, you can see that I took this picture at the exact moment that it expelled a drop of honeydew.

 Seen here...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Mite

 When I walked out the back door this afternoon there were three jumping spiders on the edge of the picnic table. I managed to get pictures of two of them.

And a crab spider