Japanese maple pest - what is it?

I am not sure what these are. I can't find legs on them. All over the new growth.
It's on this Kung Pil and my butterfly, but not all over many others.

Not sure what it is......Scale?

 

Not scale. My first thought was aphids, but aphids have legs....

 

one shower with the water and a little drop of liquid soap ,good mix and spray only up aphids

 

they are aphids, they have just gotten so fat that you can't see their legs. I really hate those buggers because they prey on the young leaves and shoots.

 

I peeled them off this time, and legs the have indeed. Now I feel dumb.
So a very diluted hand-soap mix?

 

I will let someone else recommend a recipe for a soap spray as I have avoided the stuff ever since I burnt all my leaves one spring when I (presumably) mixed it too strong. Most of the time I just squish the aphids by hand, particularly if they are only a problem on one or two trees. Often it only takes a small amount of intervention on my part to tip the balance between the aphids and their predators; if I take out the largest groups of aphids before they reproduce too much, the beneficial insects and the sparrows often take care of the rest.

P.S. moving this question to its own thread

 

At our annual county plant sale, one could buy 1500 ladybugs for either eight or ten dollars.

 

ladybugs are good solution...soap mix around 10% soap and 90%water not spray with the hard sun if possible in later afternoon,repeat after one week..another good bio alternative is white oil :)