Nightmare

The beautiful haven of my backyard has turned into a nightmare.

First, there's this:

 I know, this doesn't look like a nightmare. Unless you know what it is, and you are allergic to pollen. Yes, that yellowish green blotch is pollen. It's everywhere right now. Everything outside is coated in it. I am allergic to it, so it's not the most pleasant thing to see.

And, there's this:

 The gypsy moth plague has begun. The tiny caterpillars are everywhere, too. I am still holding out hope that we will have wet enough weather to curtail the infestation, but at the moment it is disheartening to see them all over.

Aaand, there's this:

 Confession: I don't like all bugs. These are sawfly larvae. While in general I don't have anything against them, they are infesting a bush in front of my house, one we actually planted, and in years past they have done a LOT of damage to that bush. Almost anywhere else in the backyard I don't mind them, but I do not want that bush to be destroyed.

Also, and I don't have a picture of this today, there is the problem of the ticks. It seems to be okay when I go out in the backyard in my tick repellent pants, but today my husband and I walked across the backyard wearing normal clothes and were besieged by ticks. In about two minutes I ended up with at least five on me. The tick population is exploding at the moment in this state, and it's terrible in my backyard right now. I will be mowing the lawn for the first time this season on Wednesday, and I am hoping that will help with the problem–the grass is a little bit long in some spots, and the ticks like that. I actually could see a tick on a blade of grass when we were out in the backyard. We're having to get serious about ticks this year. Ugh.

It's not all bad, though. I did find something I have never seen before for Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. It almost looks more like a comic-book version of a beetle than a real one. I wasn't able to find it in my books, but it looks very similar to a species of ground beetle in one of the books.

I found several more velvet ants today:

 Male

 Female. They were all as uncooperative as usual.

 Small beetle on a small flower. Possibly a flower longhorn. The beetle, that is. The flower is a bluet.

 A fly in an awkward position. Awkward for me, anyway, trying to get a picture.

 

 This one was just plain awkward.

 Squash bug?

 I don't know what this bug is, other than in the order Hemiptera, I think some kind of hopper, but in my mind I call them tapestry bugs, because they look like they are made of tapestries to me.

Little wasp showing off...

 ... and then not, because I got too close.

 An unusual perspective on a winter firefly

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 There are a lot of animals and insects that are colored or patterned in ways that are meant to be intimidating, like with big false eyes, or the ability to puff up, or whatever. I find that there are quite a few spiders that have scary looking faces on their bodies, like this one on the underside of the spider. But the thing is, to any other creature this probably doesn't look like a scary face, and you have to look really close at the underside of the spider in order to see it, so I don't think it's probably very effective. Except maybe on people who are afraid of spiders, and if they are already afraid of spiders, they don't need a scary face on the bottom of it to find it frightening.

Side view is not so scary. Unless you're afraid of spiders.