The Bugs in the Backyard: Trilling

Summer is back for a brief visit. Hot, humid (but not terribly so), and cacophonous. There are some pretty weird sounds in the backyard sometimes. I know it's not really fair to talk about the backyard noise when you can't hear it, but sometimes it is the most striking thing about being outside. It can be really, really loud. And there is one sound that I hear on a regular basis, nearly always coming from a particular clump of trees in the backyard, that I am completely unable to identify the source of. It is a weird, trilling sound, and though I have been hearing it for year, I don't know if it comes from a bird, a squirrel, a bug or a tree frog. I don't think it's a bird or a squirrel, because I have sometimes stood, and watched, and waited when hearing the sound, and have not spotted a bird or squirrel. Either of those would eventually move so that I could see them. My best guess, which is a totally uneducated one, is frog. It is one of the enduring mysteries of the backyard.

I am listening to the night noises of the backyard while I write this - for the first time in a while I have the window open so I can hear them and get a fresh breeze. I suggest you do the same, or better yet, go outside and listen.

Today I felt relieved and oddly thrilled when I found a Backyard Bug of the Day rather quickly upon going out to look. That has not been the case in recent days, and I found myself smiling at the tiny bug that meant anything else I found on my walk was extra.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I don't know what it is, but it appears to be immature, because it looks like its wings are still developing. I wonder what color it will be when it grows up. And how big it will be, because at the moment it is tiny - only a couple of millimeters long.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

No idea.

I came upon an interesting interaction today for Backyard Bug Behavior:

I did see the beginning of this interaction, but I didn't get pictures of it, so I will just have to tell you how it started. A buffalo treehopper landed on a goldenrod on which an assassin bug was already sitting, landing right in front of the assassin bug. The assassin bug grabbed the buffalo treehopper, but after a couple of seconds the treehopper wrenched free and flew away... about three inches, onto a leaf of the same plant. It walked around there for a few seconds and the flew again, landing on the same spike of goldenrod flowers, but this time behind the assassin bug, instead of in front of it.

Here is the buffalo treehopper on the other side of the plant, behind the assassin bug.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the assassin bug obviously was aware of the landing, because it turned around. (Note also that the buffalo treehopper is looking kind of scruffy).

The treehopper seemed oblivious to the presence of the assassin, but the assassin began to creep up on the treehopper.

Reaching out...

The assassin bug touched the treehopper with its antennae... and the treehopper flew away, unscathed. Two brushes with death within a minute.

More Backyard Bug Behavior:

This story is more congenial. I think these two earwigs are courting. I just googled it, and it's complicated, but if they are courting, they will stay together until late winter or spring.

When you're an earwig, your hugs are kind of awkward.

My guess would be that the one with the large pincers is the male.

I am still squicked out by earwigs, but I have to admit this is a pretty handsome bug.

They make a cute couple.

Many Random Bugs today:

Tree cricket, in a tree. This one is immature, it doesn't have wings yet.

I took this picture of a cranefly just for the shadow.

I took this one for the iridescence of the wings. With the camera adjusted better for the low light it wasn't as pretty, so this is what you get.

If you look carefully you can spot a couple of bugs in this picture. There are some things that it is just impossible to show in a photograph, and one of them is the magical feeling of the afternoon light glowing on the forms of flitting insects. I am sure this is why people believe in fairies.

Caterpillar...

My favorite kind of cocoon.

The first of several wings I found today. I think it is a discarded wing from an ant queen.

In an abridged version, when a young ant queen sets of to start a new colony, she leaves the nest where she was born and flies out to mate with males of other nests. After mating the males die, but the queen lands, takes off her wings, and goes off to start a new colony by laying her now-fertilized eggs. Around this time of the summer I start to find random wings lying around, and I think that's what they are. It's hard to see them in this picture, but there are three wings on the leaf next to this ant: two larger wings, and one small (I am guessing there was another small one that got blown away by the wind. They are very light). I think this is a queen who has mated, and has just discarded her wings. She crawled away rather quickly after I showed up with my camera.

Moth in the wild.

An adorable wasp.

See the wasp waist?

The rare and pleasant sight of a butterfly.

Some sort of hairstreak.

Today there's a theme among the spiders - they are all tiny. Whether that makes them less intimidating to the arachnid averse, I leave that to them to decide. However, while all of the pictured spiders are small, I have zoomed in a couple of the pictures, so they don't appear so. Arachnid Appreciation:
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I went out today in search of the two small spiders from yesterday. I did not find the first web where it had been, but this one was in the same place I saw it yesterday. This time it had at least a partial line leading to the center, and I got a better shot at the spider.