First spring insects
My
eyes are always peeled for the first spring flowers, but this year, I
seem to be more interested in the insects on those flowers.
Perhaps it's because I'm obsessed with chicken foraging, and chickens
love bugs, or maybe I'm just starting to get a real inkling for how
important insects are in the landscape.
Except for our
honeybees, I hadn't seen a single insect until about two weeks ago when
the Commas/Question Marks (I never look closely enough to tell the
difference) and the Mourning Cloaks started flying. Within days,
the Spring Azures had joined them, and this week I even saw big, showy
Tiger and Zebra Swallowtails visiting my manure pile.
Butterflies are the
prettiest early spring insects, but they aren't alone out there. When
the hepaticas started blooming a week and a half ago, tiny little
beetles were busy collecting pollen, and this week I started seeing Greater
Bee Flies hovering
around flowers.
I love how in sync the
natural world is. Bee flies show up one day; the next day, our
first nectarine flowers open. I get bit by a mosquito one day;
the next evening a bat is swooping through the air gathering
dinner. It's all a reminder that the beautiful spring flowers we
love so much didn't evolve for human enjoyment. Flowers are here
for the bees, so we need to protect our pollinators if we want the show
to go on.
Our $2 ebook shows how to escape the rat
race and start to live.
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