Looking for Bugs

After days of having too many choices for Backyard Bug of the Day, today I was afraid for a while that I wouldn't find one at all. I actually went looking for a specific bug in a certain location, because I saw it there yesterday, but didn't feature it at all; I had gambled that I would find it in the same general area again. Well, I lost that bet. Then for a while I couldn't find anything, and the bugs I did spot did not sit to have their pictures taken. And then when I did get some good pictures, it was of a bug that has already been BBotD this year (more on that later). So I worried that I was going to fail to find a Backyard Bug for the first time ever.

I didn't, though. There are just too many bugs in the backyard to not find something. And ironically, I took 300 pictures, way more than my average.

Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 Naturally, I don't know what these are, but they are tiny, and grouped together on a leaf, and I assume they are recently hatched somethings.

 What's really interesting, though, is that there are at least three different sizes, and the different sizes are also subtly different in form. So they are nymphs that hatched at different times? The look very vaguely like tortoise beetles, but not really enough to make me think that's what they are.

 One of the ones on the upper right here looks different from the others, sort of dull and cloudy, which makes me think it is about to moult.

Here's the long view. Like I said, tiny.

I came across a favorite today, but it was intriguingly different than I had ever seen it before. Do you remember the bug I called Seuss bug?

 I found one today that was about twice the size of any I have seen before, and I have been seeing these in my yard for the last three summers. For a long time I thought it was an assassin bug nymph (never trust the internet!), but it is clearly a young version of a katydid or grasshopper. You just have to look at it - not just the mouth parts, which is what tipped me off before that it is not only not an assassin bug, but not a Hemiptera at all - but the whole form of it. I can't believe I ever thought that's what it was. However, I have never seen an adult grasshopper or katydid that looks like this. And how big does it get, anyway? This is way bigger than I have ever seen, but it's still a pretty small bug, maybe half an inch.

 When I tried to steady the leaf it was on, it decided to hop aboard my finger.

 It was trying to nibble at my finger, which kind of tickled.

So, Seuss bug, what will you be when you are all grown up?

Today was obviously the day for bugs to climb onto my hand when I am trying to take their picture:

I was fine when it was on my finger. Not so fine when it started crawling up my arm, but it jumped off, so we're cool.

I got a tick bite today, too. Yep, the bugs just love me.

Remember yesterday, that folded over leaf with a caterpillar inside, that I thought might be the last of the 4 spiky bird poop caterpillars? It wasn't.

 Very clearly a different species.

Nice view of the bottom of its face. Well, not all that nice, because its silk tent is in the way, but you get the idea. This caterpillar bent over backwards to get its picture taken.

Not all caterpillars in the yard are doing well:

I suspect this is the egg of a parasitic wasp. This will not end well for the caterpillar.

But some caterpillars get to be butterflies:

 Though this one seems to have had a rough go of it. Still flies, though!

More moths in the wild:

 Plume moths look even more like stunt planes when they fly tandem.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

Plantain, scientific name: plantago rugelii. I know this because my husband wrote a paper on it in college. He hates this plant.

Here's an update of Bud of the Day from a couple of days ago:

The balloon flower bud has turned blue.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 I finally got a good look at the parents of the strawberry pot birds. When I opened the back door to go outside today they were yammering at a bluejay in the tree near their nest - and for good reason, because bluejays will eat baby birds, I have heard. Eventually the bluejay went away, and the parents fed the babies.

Snuggly and fuzzy.

Now, Arachnid Appreciation: