The Bugs in the Backyard: Mysterious Flowers

There is something of a puzzling mystery in my backyard. I see insects on my purple coneflowers, but the insects I see there are all either pollinators or predators. I have not seen any insects that actually eat the flowers. So why do my coneflowers look like this?:

Something is eating the flowers, but why do I never see anything eating the flowers? I wonder that about a lot of plants; I see plants with a lot of insect damage, but why don't I see what is damaging them?

Backyard Bird of the Day:

I don't know what this bird is.

Backyard Bugs of the Day:

Newly hatched lacewing larvae

Have you been wondering how to find monarch caterpillars? Sure, it's pretty easy when they get big, like this:

I was surprised to find this one today on the plant where the two dueling caterpillars had been; I thought they were gone yesterday (which belies my statement that they are easy to find at this size). But this might be another one from another plant that disappeared today.

But how to find caterpillars when they are newly hatched or only a few days old? They hatch on the underside of leaves, and are extremely tiny, but you don't have to look under every leaf trying to find tiny caterpillars. You can look for leaf damage from the top of the leaf:

If you see this from the top...

... you might see this underneath.

Or this on the top...

... could reveal this underneath.

This is not a technique I have ever used to find monarch caterpillars, but I happened upon it today:

A defense tactic that caterpillars use sometimes is to launch themselves off of a plant when they are disturbed, using a silk safety line, which they then climb back up to where they were when the threat has passed. They also disperse by sending out a silk thread to catch on the wind, but given the other habits of monarch caterpillars, particularly that they have only one host plant, so wouldn't want to risk landing somewhere where they could not get milkweed, I am pretty sure that that is not what was going on here.

I had a hard time finding any milkweed tussock moth caterpillars today. I only found these two from Brood #1...

... and only a couple from Brood #2. I didn't see any from Brood #3.

Long legged fly

There was a bit of drama when I was watching this bee on a purple coneflower:

It was feeding on nectar, when suddenly...

... something landed on its back! Of course, I didn't not see what it was at the time, though I witnessed it through my camera. It seemed like the bee flew away with the other bug on its back, but the pictures tell a different story. Anyway, this appears to be a thickheaded fly. Some species of thickheaded flies, though they feed on pollen from flowers, lay their eggs on (in?) bees or wasps. I don't know if that's what was happening here, or if this was just a crash. It happened very quickly...

... and though I thought the bee flew off with the fly on its back, this photo shows that the fly flew off on its own. The bee took off so immediately after that they seemed to go off together, which makes this photo something of a miracle of timing.