Blooms to Come

I'm not a smiley person by nature, and lately I haven't felt like there was much to smile about, but today, out in my backyard in the chilly, dreary weather, I found myself smiling. Why? Because of this:

 The flowering crab apple is just beginning to bloom, and it is covered with copious numbers of buds. This makes me happy because last year it didn't flower very well, and I thought that it was dying. It has rebounded this year, and soon will be a mass of pink blooms. That will attract a lot of bees, I hope, and other insects, too, but it will be lovely all on its own, regardless of the opinion of a lot of bugs.

 The peach tree is blooming too, but it only has about a dozen flowers, about all it ever has.

This wiped the smile right off my face, alas:

More of the enemy emerge–gypsy moth caterpillars.

But then there's this to smile about:

The robins have reoccupied their nest from last year, and the female is incubating her four eggs. This means we can't use the front door for the next couple of weeks.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I am pretty sure this is a springtail, and a new species for me. It is quite big for a springtail, but it definitely looks like one, and they do vary in size.

 It's tiny, but huge for a springtail. It's all relative.

 I've never seen one with this pattern.

The candy striped leaf hoppers have left the tree where they like to hang out in the winter, and have moved to trees that have leaves unfurling:

 

 Fly

I saw only one bee today:

 Bumblebee in the rock garden

 Beetle

 Cocoon

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 An interesting and timely find: yesterday I re-read my very first blog post, from 5 years and a day ago now, and I posted pictures of two spiders. When I saw this spider today I might have thought it was one I have not seen before, except that I realized that it is the same species of spider that I saw five years ago yesterday. The pictures are practically identical.