New Things

It's wonderful to walk around my backyard in the spring and see how things are different all the time. Before I started my bug walks a few years ago, I wasn't so aware of the parade of new plants that occurs. I haven't yet reached the point of knowing what is coming up when, or what order things will be blooming, but at least I am getting a better sense of how spring progresses. There is one plant I have been looking for, and they are finally popping up:

 Milkweed. I love milkweed on its own merits of beautiful, aromatic flowers, but it also attracts many kinds of insects, and perhaps most importantly, is the host plant for monarch butterflies. So having them in my backyard is good for the monarchs.

And speaking of butterflies, I found a new species for me and my backyard today for Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Juniper hairstreak

 Even though it was doing that thing hairstreaks do, of rubbing its wings together, I never got even the tiniest peek at what the dorsal side of its wings look like. Often in hairstreaks the color of the wings is totally different on each side (and I usually think the dorsal side is prettier), but hairstreaks hardly ever let you see that side.

Other Bugs:

 It's kind of amazing the number of ways that insects can blend in on plants. Stilt legged bug.

 Case bearing moth caterpillar, or maybe chrysalis?

 Tent caterpillars. I don't know what's up with that one hanging there.

 This caterpillar was probably less than an eighth of an inch long.

 I think this is a sawfly...

 There were two of them crawling around on the branch and leaves of this tree.

 I have never figured out what kind of hopper this is. It is one of the most uncooperative bugs in the backyard. It's always amazing to actually get a picture of one. It's tiny, too, about an eighth of an inch long.

 Some kind of beetle...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I finally looked up this spider, and though I didn't figure out the species, I figured out the genus (I think?) and it's a trashline orb weaver. It's a very descriptive name, since it makes a line in its web of the things it has caught. And then it hangs out with the "trash" to try not to be noticed. A bit like the Millennium Falcon in Empire Strikes Back.