A Year in the Valley

It looked like a little black bud sitting on top of a stem and I assumed it was a leaf beetle of some kind.  Then I noticed the slim white edge to its body and the rounded shape.  The bordered shield bug is a small, 3.5-4.5mm, black shield bug with white margin and a notch in the front of its head (zoom in).  Its preferred diet is bedstraws and preferred habitat is sunny and dry.  The watermeadow is slowly drying out, though the soil is hardly loose.  However, there are plenty of bedstraws and cleavers around.