Various insects found in the garden

Continuing photos from recent scouting out in the back and front yards. Photos of creepy crawlies spotted.

Spiders lurking in the garden

Been hunting out spiders and webs in recent weeks. Finding some neat ones lurking about. They seem to really love spinning webs between flower stems and the fence.

Spider on sunflower leaf

Spider and web

Another view of spider on sunflower leaf

Spider in the grass (this one was not taken at home)

Bees and other critters buzzing in the garden

So thrilled to see so many bees returning this year. I was getting worried. Every day there are plenty of photo opportunities of different flying critters just in my own yard. Here are some from this past week.

I wish I knew what this bug is. It is a super tiny critter and I see them every year anywhere I go to take photos in Virginia. They seem to love the rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans) in my yard.

Honey bee lands on the rudbeckia.

Bumble bee on yellow flowers. I do not know what they are called but I believe they are one of the flowers considered to be native for Northern Virginia.  They spread like crazy, grow in both dry and flooded conditions and attract lots of flying critters. 

 Peek-a-boo bumble bee

Sunflower blooms in the garden

The flying critters sure love the sunflowers. Last year I planted some organic sunflower seeds and I think this plant is a carry-over or a little birdie or furry critter planted it last fall. It is far ahead of schedule and much larger than the seeds I planted this year. The other plants are much smaller and some of them are just now getting small buds. This large plant has about 10 blooms on it; I took a variety of shots of the different blooms and in the background you can see some of the others. 

 

Photos of my spider neighbor

These two spiders live in the yard in different corners of the space. They like to spin their webs between wildflowers and the fences. Every few days I like to go out and try to capture some shots. (I have no idea what type of spider it is). Here are some June photos.

Daisies are in full bloom in Northern Virginia (2017)

Nice to see these lovely flowers blooming. Fortunately, they usually go straight through summer. I especially like to look at the daisies after a nice rain. Here are some June 2017 photos from my wildflower garden.

 

Cicadas in Northern Virginia

We had a surprise last month when we had an unexpected swarm of cicadas. Usually, we'll hear some every year to some extent but these came in the masses. This particular brood was not expected in Virginia but in other states, so it gave me the first opportunity be able to take some macro shots while they were still alive. Kind of an icky, yet intriguing critter to get close to! Fascinating I find them.

Butterfly on daisy

Plant it and they will come! Now that some of the wildflowers are in full bloom now, we are starting to see more fluttering and buzzing around the garden. Spotted this little lady this morning. The first couple of shots were luck but then she just started posing for me and I was able to get different angles of this beauty.

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Rainy days in the garden

Northern Virginia has been seeing a ton of rain lately. I keep saying one day I'm going to wake up and find ducks swimming in the backyard (one day I actually spotted a bird taking a bath . . . but no ducks yet!). 

Things are finally drying out and now many flowers are beginning to bloom. We had a lighter rain yesterday and I decided to go outside and try to capture some water droplets on flowers. Here are the results: