The Bugs in the Backyard: It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A... Bug.

I don't mention this a lot, but most days when I am out in the backyard, even if it's a day when I say (hyperbolically) that I couldn't find any bugs, I will see at least a few bugs flying around. I don't really count them, because I can't take pictures of them, and on the days when I have trouble finding bugs, there usually aren't a lot flying around either. The thing about bugs that you see flying around is that it is very, very difficult to even guess what they are. Bugs often look totally different when they are flying than they do when they land. There are a lot of things that look like gnats in the air, that when they land, turn out to be something totally different. Or moths - a lot of things look like moths that are not moths, and not even similar to moths when you really get to look at them.

So today, there were a lot of little things flying around. Obviously, the smaller a bug is, the harder it is to tell what it is when all you see is a blur of tiny wings. And today I didn't find a lot of bugs, and was desperate enough to find something interesting that when I saw what I thought was a few gnats hovering around, I stood and waited (patience!) until one landed so I could at least get a picture of a gnat. One finally landed (very close to the ground, curse the little beast! Why doesn't anything ever land at my eye level?), and I crouched down to get a picture, but before I even got close with the camera I realized that it wasn't a gnat. Did I mention a while back when I listed all the bugs that I have not seen this year that I have not seen any rove beetles? I like rove beetles, and one of the things I like about them - well, THE thing I like about them, basically, is the way they put their wings away when they land. They have very short elytra, the hard coverings that go over their wings when they are not flying, and when they land and put their wings away they curl up the back of their abdomens to tuck the wings under the short elytra. I don't know why I find this so charming, but I do. So when I saw this tiny, tiny bug lift up its back end to tuck away its tiny wings, I knew that I had finally found a rove beetle. A very, very small rove beetle. And because I have not seen one at all this year, guess who gets to be Backyard Bug of the Day?

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Rove beetle

Random Bugs:

It was only 51ºF outside when I went for my bug walk, and I figured it was too cold to find hoppers, but there were a few out there!

Candy striped leaf hopper

That's a candy striped leaf hopper on the other side of this leaf, but you're going to have to just take my word for it.

Springtail.

I did have a look at some leaf litter today, but other than a hopper that I saw land on a leaf (which then hopped away before I could get a picture), I did not find any bugs this time.

This is a picture of a centipede, which is not a bug - not even an insect - inside my bug vacuum. Late last night, so late it was actually today, I saw one of these creatures zoom past the couch. I am totally creeped out by centipedes. I know that they are harmless to humans, and they are considered beneficial because they eat other bugs, so having them in your house means they will eat other bugs that get in there, but I don't care, I don't like them, and I have spiders for that. I resisted the urge to squish it, however, and sucked it up in the bug vacuum. I didn't feel like going outside to release it, though, and figured it could wait until morning. Then a little while later I saw ANOTHER one go past, and sucked it up, too. Well, this morning one of them was dead. My guess is that one killed the other. I feel bad about that, because I knew they were predators, I just didn't think they would prey on each other - they seemed fine when I was watching them in the vacuum's tube together. This is the one that lived, obviously: