Lonely Flowers

There's something wrong in my backyard this summer.

 These are purple coneflowers. If you were to ask me how to attract bugs to your backyard, I would tell you to plant milkweed and purple coneflowers. Bugs LOVE purple coneflowers. They attract bees, butterflies, beetles, spiders, wasps, ambush bugs, caterpillars, hoppers, springtails... so many kinds of insects and arachnids. I have had more coneflowers blooming in my backyard this year than ever before, and for a while, they at least attracted a lot of butterflies. Most of them are past their prime, but these two, and a couple of others, are newly blooming. And what do you see on them? Do you see bees? Do you see butterflies? Do you see any arthropods of any kinds? No. You can't see it in the picture, but there was one spider thread reaching from one petal to another. But there were no spiders lying in wait for prey under the petals. There was no ambush bug waiting to grab any unsuspecting insect that landed too close. There were no tiny, black, round beetles digging in the center of the flower. No bugs. At all. And not just today - there haven't been bugs on these flowers - any of the coneflowers - for a while. Yes, and occasional one, but these flowers should be teeming with insects! And there should be spiders waiting there to feed on them! But the coneflowers are bereft of bugs!

I think it's because of the drought. I think the flowers are too dry because of a lack of rain, so they don't have enough nectar for the bugs. But this is just a guess - or a hypothesis.

And speaking of plants with no bugs on them, my hypothesis about the caterpillar yesterday was wrong. Here is the last remaining leaf on that sapling, not folded around a caterpillar. There was no caterpillar at all on the plant today. I didn't see it on any of the surrounding plants, either. Thus endeth my fascination with the black-etched prominent moth caterpillars.

Okay, how about some bugs that WERE there today? Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is some kind of green Geometer moth, but in my book the one it looks like is the Southern Emerald, which it says lives in the south. This is not the south, so I don't know if this is a moth that is not where it belongs, or if it is something that is not in the book. Anyway, it's a geometer moth.

More or less in the order in which I took them, here are Random Bugs:

 Assassin

 Grasshopper

 White hickory tussock moth. I was going to make these Backyard Bug of the Day because of their sheer numbers - I spotted at least ten of them on one of the crab apple trees. This one and the next were on other trees - they were all over the backyard.

 

 Three of the ten caterpillars on the crab apple tree

 

 Insect-spotting eye test

 Can you see it now?

 Cricket hiding between two leaves

 Wasp

A small copper butterfly finally let me get a shot of the dorsal side of its wing!

 Not that it was completely cooperative.

I think this is some kind of tachinid fly.

The purple coneflowers may not be attractive to bugs at the moment, but the garden shed is. In addition to still being full of moths, and the wasps' nest, when I opened it today, there were several crickets on the doors:

 I think this is a female (above) and male.

And I think these are two females - see the long thing sticking out the back? I think those are ovipositors.

 There was one on top of the door, too.

 Hopper

 Ladybug

 The Backyard Bug of the Day had company on the front porch this evening.

 This is the kind of moth that has taken over the shed. This one is on the porch.

 I found this moth by almost running over it with the lawnmower. You can't see what was most interesting about it, which is that when it flew away from the mower, it was white underneath.

Katydid - female, with ovipositor

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Funnel web spider. These are so shy it's maddening. I was lucky to get this shot before it scurried back into the tunnel part of its web. There is another one that I have been trying to photograph for three days without success.

Six-spotted orb weaver

You're probably thinking I put this picture in the wrong place, but there's a spider in there.

You know you're not really afraid of spiders when you peel back a leaf to see what's hiding under it, discover that it's a spider that is now about an inch from your hand, and you take a picture of it instead of screaming.

Crab spider with prey