No Mow

 Happy First Day of May! Or, as I will be observing it, First Day of No Mow May! Once again I am participating in No Mow May, in which people do not mow their lawns for the month of May. Why?

Because of this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

(Just in case you are straining your eyes trying to find bugs in these last two pictures, there aren't any). In May, if you don't mow your lawn (and don't treat it with herbicides), it gives a chance for spring ephemerals to grow and bloom, and to provide an early food source for pollinators. If you want them to pollinate food crops later on, they have to have something to eat now. If I mowed now, all of these beautiful flowers (and others I did not photograph) would be chopped down. The bees and other pollinators would lose their food source, and I would lose the loveliness.

I saw a lot of bugs today, mostly bees and flies, and all in too much of a hurry to feed on nectar to have their pictures taken. I saw two species of butterflies, both flying past me without pausing, and quite a few tiny spiders.

Also... Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Assassin bug nymph. Because if there are all these other bugs flying around, then there will be something there to eat them.

There are lots of things blooming right now:

Bleeding heart. This is not a wildflower, I planted it.

Sassafrass tree

Dogwood tree

Flowering crab apple. I didn't see many bees on these, which made me surprised and disappointed.

My peach tree only has maybe 5 flowers on it. It is not doing well.

Here are some shots I took in the woods today and yesterday, now that my knee is finally well enough to get out there:

Violets. Not one I see much in the woods, they are more of an edge of the woods clearing kind of flower. Or lawn flower. Not middle of the woods emerging from the leaf litter flower.

Wood anemone. These were just on the verge of blooming when I went for a walk in the woods the day before my surgery, and I was worried that they would be done blooming before I could get out there again; spring ephemerals are ephemeral. I was happy to find they are still blooming.

A little bit of greening happening up in the tree canopy.

Gray tree frog. It seems to be emerging out of a hole, and I wonder if it is emerging from winter hibernation. It was a lovely day for it.

Fern fiddleheads and a flower I have still not identified yet. Or maybe I identified it last year, but I don't remember what it is.
 

Okay, you came here for bugs, so now for more bugs:

Click beetle. Lately when I have been trying to take pictures of bugs they have been doing this weird and annoying thing of landing right next to me in my shadow. I then have to move so they are in the light, and that scares them away. This is the moment of taking flight because I annoyed the beetle by moving.

Also annoying: right now all the bugs are at or near ground level, which is never the easiest way to get pictures, but it harder right now because I can't crouch due to my knee.

Case in point: this stinkbug on the floor in my dining room.

We had to go out and run an errand this evening, and got home after dark, and there were a few bugs on the porch, attracted to the light:

Geometer moth

Midge

Moth

This beetle is not dead, it is just pretending because I tried to take its picture while it was on the wall, and it did not like that, so it dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead.

I know in my last post I said I was going to try to blog once a week or so, but I said that two days before I had knee surgery. Taking pictures, and even walking around the backyard, has been a bit challenging in the interim. I tried a couple of times, but here's one of only two pictures I have from that time:

A pair of crane flies on the front porch screen door.

The other picture is in Arachnid Appreciation:

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I was sitting on the couch one evening, with an ice pack strapped to my knee, and this spider appeared, marching right toward the couch. It was huge, and not keen on being captured in my bug vacuum. I am glad I caught it, because I would not have been keen on knowing it was walking around if I didn't catch it. So, here it is in the bug vacuum, annoyed. I took it outside, and under normal circumstances I would have taken photos of it out there, but it was raining, and I couldn't really walk down the porch steps because of my knee.