Sunday Visitors...

I decided to slow down for a break today and see what came through the yard right after we finally got a good rain for about 30 minutes.  I'll start with a female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.  She and a male were checking out the flowers and the feeders.

Here's a Snowberry Clearwing Moth.  A really fascinating creature.  It flies silently and slowly moves around to each flower pod on my butterfly bushes.  This is the first one I've seen this season.  Here's a picture of last years (HERE).

Here's a Brown Thrasher.  They are very interesting to watch with their stern eyes and they sweeping motion moving around leaf litter to see what bugs or worms it runs across.

Don't freak out!  These are actually good bugs to have.  They are Assassin Bugs.  Cool name, huh!  They scour your plants looking for all kinds of juicy bugs to grab, stab and dine.  Be careful not to handle them though.  It's said they give a pretty good sting with the proboscis.  That's what they jab into their victim and inject their poison to dissolve their prey's insides out to then suck up.

Remember, it's good to not just go grab anything off the shelf at the store that kills everything.  If you let nature take its course, there are usually always good bugs to run off bad bugs.  Rarely do you need to do anything to interfere.  Just do a little bit of Google research like I do a lot.  It's knowledge that will last a lifetime!

This one might look dangerous, but it's not.  It's a Milkweed Bug.  It just sucks on Milkweed plants.  But doesn't really do enough damage to worry about them.  And their life cycle is short only lasting during the blooming season of Milkweed plants.  Birds and others don't like them though because they keep a lot of the toxins and distasteful aspects of the Milkweed plant within themselves to really give a nasty taste to a would-be predator.

Now, get out there and see what's going on your yard!  Happy yarding!