Beleaf Me

Here's the best thing about my backyard right now:

 

 Leaves!

 The flowering crab apple tree is leafing out, and so it is the most wonderful thing in the world right now. Well, my world, anyway. This is one of the many things I love about spring.

The pussywillow has buds, too.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Looper caterpillar. Getting pictures of this caterpillar was an exercise in patience today. When I spotted it, it was climbing up a tree trunk, about a foot above the ground. My bad knee won't let me crouch down to take pictures at that level, so I had to wait for the caterpillar to inch its way up to my eye level. It was cruising pretty fast, so I thought it would be up there in no time, but it seemed to get tired about halfway up, and slowed down. It was funny, but kind of annoying because after all, I was waiting for it.

I found a black birch tree that had sap running down its trunk from somewhere high up, and the ants had found it, too:

 More than one species of ant fed on the sap.

 A couple of male midges

 There were quite a lot of flies about today.

Lady beetle

A bit of variety today for Arachnid Appreciation:
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