Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Today is one of those days when a bug that keeps getting shut out of Backyard Bug of the Day finally gets to shine. But that is mostly because I found it right away, and I had to rush my bug walk because someone in my neighborhood was burning something, and I had an asthma attack and had to go back in the house and stay there with the windows closed for a few hours until the smoke was gone.

If I was the suspicious type I would suspect the bugs of being involved, but I am not that paranoid...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Japanese beetles. I know they are near-universally reviled as garden pests, but I don't care, I like them.

 I like them because of their striking good looks; the green and copper iridescence, and the black and white patterns on their sides. I like their antennae that look like a hand waving a friendly hello.

 And I like the funny things they do when they feel threatened. This is one of them - they lift up their middle pair of legs and hold them out like this. Oooh, very threatening!

 I have seen them do some fun gymnastic moves when they have those two legs poking out and they are caught between two leaves. I wish I had a good picture of THAT! The other defensive thing they do, which I don't have a picture of, is a variation on what a lot of bugs, mostly beetles, do when I am annoying them: they just roll right off the leaf they are on. What's different about the way Japanese beetles do it is that instead of dropping to the ground and playing dead, they take flight on the way down. It's a pretty cool maneuver, though I always wonder why they don't just fly away in the first place (and they do actually do that sometimes). It's annoying when you're trying to take a picture, but it's still funny.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

I think this is a primrose. I guess I'll find out when it blooms.

Speaking of blooms:

Sorry, couldn't resist another shot of the balloon flowers.

Here's a bunch of random bugs:

 Skipper.

 This beetle apparently hitched a ride inside (maybe it is asthmatic, too, in which case now I feel bad for sending it back outside). I found it when it started crawling on my neck, and this picture shows it where it landed when I had a typical "AAH! THERE'S A BUG ON ME!" reaction and flung it away. That is mostly because it was on the back of my neck; if it had been somewhere I could see it I would not have freaked out as much. Anyway, it's a ground beetle. They don't bite. Or not humans, anyway.

You can see two bugs in this picture, but there's probably a third inside all of those stuck together leaves.

I have never seen so many weird, woolly things in the yard before this year...

 It looks like a bug covered in snow.

Side view of whatever that is.

Every once in a while I encounter a long-legged fly that is willing to cooperate:

 So beautiful.

 And with the picture zoomed in, you can see the awesomeness of the eyes.

 And with the picture zoomed in even MORE... Okay, maybe you want to run screaming from the room. Except, those really are awesome eyes.

Yes. Beautiful.

It's kind of amazing the number of bugs I got pictures of when I was outside for such a short time, and didn't really take many pictures (comparatively).

And of course, I got a couple of spiders, so let's have some Arachnid Appreciation!
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 I think because of the cloudiness, the pictures of this spider don't really do it justice. It looked a gorgeous emerald green when I saw it. But I think also it's one of those spiders whose color depends on the angle you are looking from (though the camera was looking from my angle, so that doesn't really explain it...

I can't tell what it has there. It looks like part of the flower, but what would it be doing with that?