What’s not to love about spending a day at home. The Dickcissels were singing and scolding me. I think I was near their nest. However I didn’t locate their pretty blue eggs. And I ran out of patience before they did. LOL.
First of season, Tapioca Slime Mold (Brefeldia maxima).
A spider had carefully spun their web on the Texas Thistle (Cirsium texanum)!
All stages of the Wheel Bug (Arilus cristatus) preys on other insects. So a gardener should be happy to have’em!
This spider was having success!
On a lot of the Texas Thistle (Cirsium texanum) I found the Halictid or Sweat Bees. This one obviously had previously dined at the yellow pollen cafe. 😉
The shiny butt of the Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica) on a Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis)!
Here was a new one for me, the location of an egg case of a Lacewing (Hemerobiiformia) on Green Milkweed.
Like most of the Cetoniinae (Fruit and Flower Chafers), they are common head down in the flowers like this Dark Flower Scarab (Euphoria sepulcralis)!
Southern Plains Bumble Bee (Bombus fraternus) was digging too. However you can see that their pollen was yellow-orange. So my assumption was that most of their visits were not on the thistles.
Another first for me, a Case-bearing Leaf Beetle (Cryptocephalinae) larva on a thistle. Commonly I find them on the blackberries (Rubus). Perhaps it was a different species. BugGuide says there are 350 species in 22 genera in the US.
Finally like the thistle, I wave “later” to you. 😉
Oh wow, what a hopeful story about Rockalina the box turtle!
What a wonderful host the thistle is.
Thistles are where all the action seems to be – like to watch all those little critters snuggle up into the blossom.