Try, Try Again

Timing is everything. And mine is bad today. I was looking for an opportune moment to go outside and do my bug walk, balancing various factors that made going outside undesirable. Rain was expected, so I wanted to get out before that started, but it was hot and getting hotter, and every degree higher makes for a more unpleasant time in the backyard. When the clouds became quite menacing I decided it was a now-or-never moment, even though the temperature had reached 92ºF, so out I went... and within a minute the thunder began. It wasn't raining - yet - (it is now, as I write), but I didn't think it would be a good idea to be walking around outside holding a metal stick - that's why so many golfers are struck by lightning. So, bug walk interrupted.

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Wait half an hour. The storm abates, after dropping an eighth of an inch of rain. The sun comes out, the temperature has dropped ten degrees (though it's still disagreeably humid), gear up, go outside... More thunder. But it's sunny! Surely I won't be hit by lightning when it's sunny! Even walking around with a metal stick! That's what the golfers always say. Back in the house.

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 The third time was the charm, more or less. When the thunder stopped, I waited half an hour to go outside. The sun was out, the temperature had gone back up (not all the way to the 90s, but almost), and I was able to go around a good bit of the yard before the thunder started up again. And that was the end of the bug walking for the day.

Rain

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Red milkweed beetle, on milkweed, natch. Haven't seen one of these in a while.

Who Else Is On the Milkweed Today?

 Just this guy. And some plume moths and ants. If you're wondering why it has no antennae, it does, and they were visible in the first couple of shots I took, but then for some reason it tucked them away.

Some interesting eggs:

Don't know what they are - I haven't seen these before. Some of them have holes in them. I wonder if that's from the inhabitants breaking out, or something else breaking in.

Do you ever feel like you're being watched?

 

Not just an ordinary raindrop. I don't know why this has bubbles, but it looks like there's something inside it, and I suspect that it made the bubbles.

Random Bugs:

Hoverfly

This beetle is standing on a goldenrod plant, but that's a dried up milkweed flower it's leaning on, so maybe that should have been under the Who's On the Milkweed Today category... 

Speaking of beetles:

This one was doing some acrobatics on the deer netting around the blueberry bush.

As you can see, this was after the first rain.

I didn't notice when I took the picture, but this earwig has caught a hopper nymph. It looks like the earwig is holding onto the nymph while the nymph is holding onto the plant. This may be a bit like sitting on the branch of a tree while you are sawing it off.

Caterpillar from yesterday, a better picture.

I like it when I find a plant with multiple bugs on it.

 Baby grasshoppers are so adorable.

 Hide and seek

Funky hopper nymph. I wish I knew what this was going to grow into.

 At first glance I thought this was a beetle whose black elytra hid a red body underneath, but on closer inspection I realized that it had something underneath and was unable to close its elytra completely.

It is covered with parasites.

This wasp was crawling all over the top of this plant. It would crawl to toward the end of a leaf, which could not support its weight, so it would droop down. Then the wasp would awkwardly crawl back up and move to another leaf and do the same thing. Over and over. I find insect behavior puzzling sometimes.

 Observation: Sow bugs like wet weather.

Moth in the wild

 This beetle was thrashing around on the surface of the water in a puddle. Yes, of course I rescued it.

 Arachnid Appreciation:

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I didn't get a good picture of this spider because it was crawling really fast all over the plants (it moved from one to another - and one was milkweed), but I wanted to post what I got because this is a new spider for me.

The black and white stripes are very striking.

So cooperative.

Crab spider on milkweed