I Should Take Notes

There was something that occurred to me as I was doing my bug walk today that I wanted to put in here, but now I don't remember what it was...

I guess you'll just have to do without my incredible insights today.

The weather was a teeny bit dicey, as in, it started to pour just when I was going outside with my camera. So I stood on the porch and glared at the rain and it stopped after about a minute.

Sometimes I find myself a little bit scary.

There are going to be Co-Bugs of the Day, for reasons I will explain when I post the second bug. Here is the Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 I am pretty sure I have never seen this before, which is saying something since I have been doing this for over 2 years. I thought it was dead at first, a spider victim, just the shell of a bug stuck on last year's goldenrod.

Then it moved.

 Definitely a weird one. Bee? Fly?

 Panda?

 Nope, definitely not a panda.

And what's that thing on its eye? Is that supposed to be there?

Moving on to Backyard C0-Bug of the Day #2:

Not quite so interesting. But a couple of weeks ago when it was hard to find bugs at all, I kept finding these, and taking pictures of them, and ultimately finding more interesting bugs to be BBotD. But when I saw this today, I realized I had not seen one in a while, and if I did not feature it today, it would never get a chance. In the interest of fairness (or something, I don't know, probably from being scarred for life by junior high school) I decided to make it Co-BBotD. I couldn't just use it instead of the other bug, because I've never seen one of those before, so maybe I'll never see one again?

Backyard Bud of the Day is a bit more predictable. Predictable as in, I knew there would be buds on this bush at some point...

Blueberry. Beautiful buds, which will become beautiful flowers, which will make beautiful blueberries. Though based on the number of flowers on the bush this year, we're going to get about 6 blueberries, max.

How about a Daily Dandelion?

Okay, I just really like alliteration. And dandelions. They don't like rain, though.

I've got an extra bug for you today:

I am posting this bug because it matches so well the plant it is on, and it occurs to me that the bug probably doesn't know what color it is. So why did it land there? Was it happenstance? Was it drawn to that color? I will never know...

I got a decent picture for Backyard Bird of the Day:

 Gray catbird. Not the most exciting bird, but you take what you get. This is another zoomed/cropped picture - I had the macro lens on the camera, and no way was the bird going to let me get any closer.

Late Breaking Bug News! I just went out on the porch, where the light was on, and saw this:

Yet another moth that looks like bird poop!

I really never intended for my bug blog to focus so much on poop...

Let's appreciate some arachnids instead!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

This spider was hiding in a clump of leaves. Looked like a good place to drown if it had kept raining. Anyway, I don't know why I thought this was so cute, but, well, it is.

And now for MORE Arachnid Appreciation! With EXTRA appreciation, because there's EXTRA arachnids.
Sorry, I'm feeling kind of punchy. That's why my blog has turned into an infomercial for spiders.

Saw this cool spider today...

Then later I was outside again and saw that there was another spider with it! I am not sure of the situation here - are they the same species? Their different coloring could be a male/female thing. I don't know anything about sexual dimorphism in these spiders...
(I took this picture the second time I went out, but when I went back and looked at the first batch of pictures, the other spider was there the whole time, and I just didn't notice it. So much for my super powers of observation!).