Just a quick note on a new find.
In the periphery of my attention, they looked like dead blossoms. But, wait…that makes no sense. Big dead blossoms on my gooseberries? On my fruit trees? On my witch hazel? Only recently, did I investigate what appeared to be a cocoon of some kind. Sure enough it is the, nicely camouflaged, home of Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis, the bagworm. Here is a brief but very informative page about the insect from Penn State Extension. I removed the, very firmly attached, bagworm cases as the insect can be destructive to the plant.