I never see them, only if I look right into the center of the flower, color lite tan.

No, this is not thrips. My thrips are black, not tan, and look like the top of an exclamation point. You have some other bug eating the blooms. I had little beetles once that did that.

I thought thrips didn't eat the bloom, just stripped the color off the petal.

flowergirl - You are correct. Thrips don't eat holes in the bloom, they strip the color and make the blooms splotchy and difficult to open.

On NGA, I learned this is earwig damage. The black specks are poop.

I'm glad you identified the culprit. Earwigs are the one kind of daylily pest I haven't had. Keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get them. I hope you'll conquer them.

Oh great, another pest to contend with!!!! It has been so wet this spring that slugs have had feast days. I have the dratted little red garden insect that decimates buds before they bloom,thrips that occasionally appear and now the possibility of earwigs?!!! Whatever happened to daylilies being the no care plant?!! Oh, and I forgot about the early aphids.......fun to be a gardener.

Kate