Things Unseen

I didn't find a Backyard Bug of the Day today, so now might be a good time to mention things that I didn't see. I don't mean things that I didn't see today in particular, but things I haven't seen this year that I normally do see around this time. I haven't seen any woolly bear caterpillars this autumn, although I did see some last spring - but those would have been the ones that overwintered from the previous year. I haven't seen any brown hooded owlet moth caterpillars, and I usually see those every year in the autumn, starting years before I even had a macro lens, so I wasn't even regularly out looking for bugs. There is another kind of caterpillar I usually see around now, I don't know what kind it is, but they make little bowers for themselves by gluing leaves together with silk, and when you disturb them they back up into their bowers. To me they always look like trains backing up into the roundhouse. I haven't seen any springtails, and that I am pretty sure is due to the extremely dry weather, because from what I have read, they like dampness. I haven't seen any shamrock orb weavers or marbled orb weavers. That's all I can remember, though I do think I had a longer mental list when I was thinking about this in the backyard today on my bug walk.

I did see some bugs today, though. Random Bugs:

 These, of course, though not as many as before. I wonder if a lot of them have already completed their biological imperative and reached the end of their life span.

 Speaking of their biological imperative...

 I probably noticed this last year and forgot, and then re-noticed it today, but these bugs are sexually dimorphic, meaning the male and female look different. In this case the size of the head and eyes is different. The one on the top, which I think is the male, has much bigger eyes and a bigger head than the female.

 Cricket

 Woolly aphid

 Hopper

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I saw a couple of these tiny spiders on their webs today.

There was a swarm of those March flies hovering above this web, and they would dip down to about an inch or two above the web. I could picture the spider saying, "Closer... closer... just a little bit more..."