Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.

Even before it was officially spring, I’ve been seeing lots of what I thought were Milkweed Bugs. It didn’t really make any sense since the Milkweed hadn’t even started growing yet. Today, I took a macro image of a mating pair of the bugs and did a visual search on Bing. The search pointed me to Lygaeus turcicus, the False Milkweed Bug. The False Milkweed Bug feeds on seeds of the False Sunflower. Last year I had a large patch of False Sunflower plants next to the house. The False Sunflower plants apparently do a good job of self-seeding, since there are even more of the plants this year and they are already 3 feet high. It is a section that for several years I had a hard time of growing anything being under a Sycamore tree. The Sycamore tree died (anthracnose) so the section now does get more sun. This pair of False Milkweed Bugs are mating on a False Sunflower leaf.