Monday, Monday...

 Monday, July 21, 2014

Ugh. Such a frustrating day of bug hunting in the backyard today. I took fewer than a hundred pictures, and about twenty of them were of a rabbit. The bugs were just nowhere to be found. Perhaps they don't like the sound of bulldozers, and they were off hiding somewhere with their noise-canceling headphones on. Or perhaps I am projecting. But there were few bugs to be found, and not many wanted their picture taken. I got lots of pictures like this:

 Plume moth..

 Leaf hopper. This particular species almost never cooperates anyway.

Uncooperative butterfly.

For a while I couldn't find any bugs at all, but fortunately I finally found a good one.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

A leaf hopper.

Backyard Bud of the Day was surprisingly easy to find:

Here's another look at a balloon flower bud:

A star.

The star is a popular motif in nature:

Many things are star shaped. Ironic that stars are not.

I wouldn't have seen this if it hadn't moved:

 

It blends in amazingly well. It also moves really fast.

Random Bug:

Tiny, tiny, tiny cricket. Maybe a quarter of an inch long. But you can see from the shadow that it has loooooooong antennae. And if it was in the bedroom at night when you're trying to sleep I'll bet it would make a big noise.

Today I looked at the astilbe from a new perspective:

When there are more blooms on the stalk this will be a big favorite of the bugs, but they don't seem to have noticed it's blooming yet.

I did have to good fortune to find a couple of arachnids to appreciate today, so... Here's Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 I believe this is a house spider, in spite of the fact that it was out in the shed. It's funny that an animal that we have not domesticated would end up with the name house spider, when that is certainly not its natural habitat. However, I guess they end up in houses enough that that's what they're called. What's weird is that most of the spiders that I find in my house are not house spiders, but other species. Anyway, I am pretty sure this one did not appreciate me, because after I took this picture I ruined its web by taking the lawnmower to which it had anchored the web out of the shed. I am compassionate to animals, but I am not going to not mow the lawn because a spider is using my mower.

 It's latest prey is pretty formidable in size - a harvestman that is slightly bigger than the spider, not even counting the legs. It's not really a fair fight, though, since the harvestman doesn't have venom.

 I always find these spiders on purple cone flowers. I sometimes wonder how that comes about - obviously this spider had to be somewhere else until this single cone flower bloomed. So what is it about cone flowers that make these spiders decide to leave wherever they are, and come aboard? How do they even know it's there?