What Can I Say? My Backyard Is Awesome.

Today's perambulations about the backyard featured some weird encounters, and a plethora of bugs and spiders, and the best ones were The Ones Who Got Away.

Not much to say about those last, however. They got away and I didn't get pictures of them. But oh, if only I'd been able to get a picture of that big, blue wasp...

But more important are the ones that didn't get away. And I had a bit of trouble deciding on who gets to be Backyard Bug of the Day, because there were a lot of cool bugs today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

At first I thought this bug had really long antlers (Did I say antlers? This is not a deer! I meant antennae), but then I realized that those are its front legs - it actually has quite short antennae. But those front legs are extraordinary! And it's not like all of its legs are long, like a cranefly - just the front ones. I wonder what that adaptation helps with. Anyway, it's pretty, with great wings, and I have never seen it before, so it wins the honor of BBotD

A couple of interesting finds:

 I know you know what these are, but I am going to tell you anyway, for the sake of posterity and all that. These are... well, actually, come to think of it, I don't know the actual name of this thing, but it's where the ladybug larva pupated, and now the larva has emerged as a ladybug and gone off somewhere, leaving this behind. Unfortunately, I did not see the emergence, but this is still a cool find.

And I found another one, too.

Now for today's episode of Who's On the Milkweed?

 Remember the small milkweed bug from yesterday? Well, this is the large milkweed bug. They are very similar, but the markings on their backs are different. Also, I guess the large milkweed bug is larger, but not by a lot. As bugs go, the small milkweed bug isn't all that small, not even compared to the large milkweed bug. An interesting thing about the large milkweed bug: this is the first time I have ever seen one. I have seen the small milkweed bug in abundance, but this is the first large milkweed bug for me. Interesting then, that the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America says that the large milkweed bug is "common on its host plant," but then says of the small milkweed bug that it is, "even more numerous and widespread." Indeed.

 Some sort of plant bug, Hemiptera

 I know this is a bad picture, but I am trying to make a point.

 A hopper

Some sort of fly

 Long-legged fly. In case you haven't noticed, they come in different color schemes.

Two kinds of bees - with bonus ant, if you can spot it.

There are just some of the bugs I found on the milkweed today. There were others that were in spots that were unphotographable.

I had an awkward encounter with a couple of moths today:

 I interrupted a tender moment between this moth and another one. I was investigating what looked like a blob of fluff on a leaf, and when I pulled down the leaf, the two moths tumbled off onto my shoulder. They both flew off in different directions. Actually, one flew off, this one just dropped to the ground, as you see here.

 This might be the other one...

 Here's a better look at it.

 Speaking of strange Lepidopteran encounters, I took a bunch of pictures of this butterfly, and as I was doing this, my camera battery ran out. While I was looking at my camera screen and seeing that the battery was dead, the butterfly flew over and landed on my head. Ha ha.

Strangely, that was the second bug that landed on my head today. I didn't see what the other one was - it landed with a thud, and I brushed at it with the mail, which was in my hand, but it flew off to the side of me really fast, so I only got a quick glimpse of it in my peripheral vision. It was a dark color, that's all I know. And then the butterfly happened.  Weird.

 Of all the brilliant colors of butterflies, how come I only ever get to see the brown ones?

Actually, I may have seen a monarch butterfly today. I am not sure because I was taking a drink at the time, and only saw it over the rim of the glass, as it flew past really fast, but it could have been one. That would be nice. It would be especially nice if it was a female that had just laid eggs on the milkweed...

Skipper. Okay, so it's not brown, but it's still pretty drab. This is the bud head of a common mullein, by the way. I don't know what a butterfly is doing on flowers that haven't bloomed yet, but what do I know about what a butterfly is looking for?

One more Lepidoptera:

Random Bugs:

 This looks like a tree cricket.

 Beetle

 Bad picture of the beetle, but notable in that while I was taking it, I noticed something else...

 ... Another bug, walking down the stem of the plant.

 I am not clear on whether these are the same thing, but in different life stages, or if they are different, but coincidentally have the same fluffiness and happen to be on the same vine.

 This one is a juvenile hopper of some kind, I think, and that fluffiness is excreted from its back end.

 I didn't get a good shot of this one, because it's hard to take a picture of a white thing on a dark background, but I am posting this one just so you can get a look at it, and to see if you can find the other, much, much smaller bug in this shot.

These next three go together, to illustrate its movement:

 I don't know what that movement was about, but it happened.

 Stinkbug, I think.

Borer

 This bug is similar to, and obviously related to, the Backyard Bug of the Day from a few days ago. Also not in my books.

 Closer look at its texture

 I don't know what this is, but that's a formidable proboscis.

 Some aphids

 This is the aphid from above that is in the shadow.

 Another great leaf hopper. I am not sure, but this might be the first time I have ever been able to get a picture of this species when it was not on the front porch, attracted by the light.

 I don't know what this bug is eating... This also might be on milkweed, but I can't remember if that's where I took it, so I didn't put it in that category out of an abundance of honesty. I don't want to imply there are more bugs there than there actually are. Even though there are a LOT of bugs on the milkweed.

There's a line from the movie Mulan [Spoiler alert if you have never seen Mulan], said by Mushu the dragon right after the Huns who were buried in an avalanche start bursting out of the snow: "Did you see those Huns? They popped out of the snow - like daisies!"

 Well, I've always thought it was more like mushrooms.

One last anecdote about my day in the yard, unaccompanied by a picture, but interesting (I hope) nonetheless. Not that it's much of an anecdote but... well, here it is. I was walking down the driveway, which is a bit of a hill, and when I was just about to the bottom, a hawk zoomed by, about fifteen feet in front of me, right at my eye level. Given that I was still on the hill, that means that the hawk was maybe six or seven feet above the ground. It swooped past and into the neighbor's yard, where I lost sight of it. I didn't see anything that it might have been chasing, so I don't know why it was flying so low, but it was a glorious sight to see, the kind of thing that makes you feel glad to be alive in this world.

Soooooooo many spiders to appreciate today! I am pretty psyched - I haven't seen many spiders lately. I am really appreciating this Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I don't know if it's just the angle of the photograph, but this spider looks like it is missing one of its chelicerae. Poor thing. That had to be unpleasant.

 I accidentally wrecked this spider's web the other day. The web was built close to a tree, but one of the anchoring threads went across my path, and I didn't see it until I broke it. Today I was back in that area of the yard, and discovered that it had rebuilt its web in the same place (spiders will often build in the same place for a while)...

... but now there was a warning flag across the path. Yes, I know that it just fell from a tree and happened to land there, but I was amused at the thought of the spider putting it there to avoid me wrecking its web again.

 This might be a new one for me. I don't have a good picture of it, because it was in an awkward spot, but here's a decent shot of its abdomen...

 ... and one of its legs with a peek at its cephalothorax.

 Two spiders on the same vine (which is also, by the way, the vine where the two fuzzy things were).

 This one was deconstructing its old web - and eating the silk, I think (which spiders do - why waste that protein?).

 This one climbed up to the vine...

 ... and then dropped down again. I am not sure if this is its hunting technique or not, but it kind of gave that impression.

 A purple spider!

I learned something about this spider today. I have often seen this kind of spider with a web built across a leaf, connected at the leaf's curled in edges. There's a space between the web and the leaf, and the spider hangs out on this underside of the web. I've always wondered how it can work that way, since its prey obviously will be landing on the other side of the web. And today I figured it out. I realized that the spider can just reach through the web to grab the prey, and even to bite it and suck out its juices. It was a "duh" moment for me.