Every spring, he has a profuse explosion of daffodils and crocuses and lilies and all kinds of beautiful spring flowers, and every spring, we admire them.
Found a few critters that I would like to find out more about. I have seen this very same species of spider on our potato plants. It is some kind of crab spider. It hunts rather than build a nest, waiting patiently for an unsuspecting herbivorous insect, which makes them a good beneficial insect in the garden.
Flower Crab Spider
And this one is new to me, some sort of nectar eating fly. It is not a bee, for lack of antennae, and it has quite a long proboscis to reach the nectar. Interesting critter, this one.
Greater Bee Fly
Our neighbor is also an amateur naturalist and birder, so he has dozens of birdhouses, bird feeders, bird baths, frog ponds, and trees planted especially to feed the birds. We always see a large flock of about a dozen Tree Swallows at his place, and I was lucky enough to catch the picture below.
His plum, apple and pear trees are just beginning to bud, when they are in full bloom, it is a beautiful sight.
4 comments:
Lovely pics of spring my friend. I'm so happy it's in full swing up there for you now too!! Miss you! If you see me online, lets chat sometime, okay? :)
The unidentified insect looks to me like a Sphinx Moth... they hover just like hummingbirds and are particularly fond of my purple lilacs and purple flox...
farm mom, Full swing is right, we may hit 90 degrees F tomorrow! Whew! Miss you too, I will watch for you.
Michelle, it turns out it is Bombylius major - Greater Bee Fly. It is of the fly family, and eats nectar. Here's a link to the bugguide.net page where I identified it http://bugguide.net/node/view/14997. I would love to see one of those Sphinx Moths though!
PS, the small white spider above is a Flower Crab Spider, and it actually catches bees as well as other unsuspecting prey. see http://bugguide.net/node/view/6749
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