The Bugs in the Backyard: Seeing Is Believing

There's this saying about bumblebees, about how they shouldn't be able to fly, because their aerodynamics are wrong, or something like that, and the more cutesy version says that the bumblebee doesn't know that, and so it flies anyway. It's supposed to be inspiring, I guess, but it's complete nonsense. All it means if you say that based on physics and aerodynamics and whatever the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly is that humans don't really understand flight very well. Bumblebees are tiny animals, with tiny brains. They don't think about things like that. They just fly, because they can. They don't need to understand anything about the laws of physics to do it. It comes naturally. They are not responsible for the flaws in human knowledge. Frankly, the lack of logic in that saying has always bugged me. That and the one about how you can never get out of the room because you always have to cover half the distance. Look it up if you don't know it - I find it too irritating to discuss it. Except I am discussing it. Never mind. Point is, bumblebees can fly, regardless of what humans think flying entails. But I will say this - they don't always fly well. Sometimes those little buggers are downright clumsy. In fact, there are a lot of bugs that are very clumsy fliers, like praying mantises, and sometimes grasshoppers, and I can't remember what else, but I have seen more than a few crash landings in the backyard. Not everybody can be a butterfly. But still, those clumsy bugs can fly, which is more than I can do (and I sure tried when I was a kid, and I don't think it's the fact that I knew I couldn't that kept me on the ground), and their various species have made it this far in the world, so obviously it works well enough. There's no style points, all you need to do is survive.

Anyway, this bee had me thinking about all of that today:

This is one of those really huge bumblebees, which I only ever see on these particular flowers. I noticed that the bee was quite clumsy, and flew as if it was difficult to keep itself up in the air. I didn't tell it that it shouldn't be able to fly at all - evidently it is naivete that is keeping it in the air.

These bees are also a little bit too heavy for the flowers sometimes.

Speaking of clumsy fliers, here's today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

Some sort of cricket. It fluttered down out of a tree and landed in the grass in front of me, like it was throwing itself at my feet to be chosen as Backyard Bug of the Day, so of course I complied. It was a very awkward flier.

Flexing its elytra

Quite a face

Here's a zoomed-in look of those awesome striped eyes.

Random Bugs:

I am kind of surprised to see so many bugs mating so late in the season, but I don't know anything about the life cycles of most bugs, so maybe they have plenty of time for their young to do what they need to do before winter.