Certified

Here's some news from my backyard:

 

 My backyard is an officially certified wildlife habitat. This happened a while ago, but I just got around to putting up the sign. What is the purpose of having my backyard be an officially certified wildlife habitat? I have no idea, I did it because I thought it was kind of funny. If anyone asks, I will probably tell them that the sign is there so that the wildlife knows where to go. However, while certification was not necessary, there is a point to this, which is that the whole point of my backyard being the way it is is to provide an environment for wildlife. And for me, that means the teeniest, tiniest wildlife, too - not just deer, and raccoons, and rabbits, but insects and spiders. So, welcome wildlife! But this doesn't mean you can eat what's in the vegetable garden!

 There are three Backyard Bugs of the Day today, not because I found three spectacular things, but because I found three possible candidates and didn't want to make a decision.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 I couldn't find this moth in my book. It has some pretty impressive camouflage - it doesn't just look like a curled up, dried leaf, it also has a snout that looks like the leaf stem.

I actually found two of them today, which is part of the reason I thought they deserved to be Backyard Bug of the Day.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Katydid. Female. Found her when she jumped out of the way of the lawnmower.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

 A planthopper of some kind - this species is not shown in my book. I think there have been fewer hoppers around this summer, so having found this one, I decided it should be a Backyard Bug of the Day.

My bug walk today was more than usually unsuccessful. It's not that I didn't see any bugs. But I can't take a picture of every bumblebee and assassin bug I see. I don't want to show you the same bugs every single day. That's not interesting for me or for you. So anything I am seeing all the time I don't really bother to take pictures of. Some days that's okay, because I find lots of other interesting things. Some days it's a bore, and kind of frustrating. And today of all days, just after I put up my certified wildlife sign! Well, maybe not enough bugs have seen it yet.

My problem right now is that my backyard is all sticks and no stickbugs.

I did see quite a few spiders today, and you'll see those at the end of the post, if you are inclined to look at them.

Random Bugs:

 Of course, I am still going to post pictures of assassin bugs sometimes.

I know this next one is a bad picture, but it illustrates something, so here it is...

 One place I can pretty reliably see bugs lately, even if it's hard to get pictures of them there, is on the underside of leaves on the catalpa trees. I spotted this little vignette on one of the leaves. I think that the main rib of the catalpa leaves must be a really good source of whatever plant juices are in there, because a lot of the leaves have insects there, obviously feeding. So I spotted this trio here; the beetle was just sitting on the leaf, but the fly was feeding, and the other bug was walking in from the edge of the leaf. Now, some Hemiptera are plant feeders, but others, like assassin bugs, are insectivorious. And assassin bugs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. So I didn't know if this one fed on plants or insects, but it appeared to be stalking the fly.

 The fly then flew to another spot on the leaf, but the bug went right to the leaf rib and started feeding.

 Closer look at the fly

 Closer look at the plant bug

 An unusual view of the brown hooded owlet moth caterpillar. It was actually eating today. I rarely see them feeding, they seem to spend most of their time just resting on plant stems.

 I have mentioned before that caterpillars don't have very good eyesight. So they do this thing that is kind of funny - when they are walking around (looking for who knows what), they will come to the end of a leaf or twig, or whatever they are walking on, and the front end of them caterpillar will walk right off the edge, while the other end holds on. The caterpillar then waves its body around, as if it is hoping to find something to grab onto. If it doesn't, it turns around and walks off in the other direction.

 Galls on an oak tree

 Tiny wasp near the galls. I don't know if this wasp came from one of the galls. I looked up oak gall wasps, and they didn't look like this, but there could be multiple kinds.

The rest of these insects were found when I was mowing the lawn, not during my bug walk. I do see quite a lot of bugs when I am mowing the lawn, mostly crickets, moths, and spiders. It's not always possible to get pictures of them, but it does make one conscious of how many insects are living in the grass.

 Some kind of hopper nymph. There were a couple of different ones that I found when I was taking a picture of the katydid. I realize that I could find a lot of interesting bugs every day if I got down on the ground and combed through the grass, but I am not going to do that.

 This might be a dingy cutworm moth.

 Interesting angle on a grasshopper

Weevil

The good: I found a woolly bear caterpillar. The bad: I found it after I accidentally stepped on it. It didn't die, at least not at the time, but the last time I saw it, it was being fed upon by a daddy-long-legs.

For a while during my bug walk today I thought I wasn't going to find anything but spiders. Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Six-spotted orb weaver

 Crab spider. This one was tiny. The kind of tiny where you can't tell it's a spider with the naked eye.

 

 Jumping spider

 This is the moment right before it jumped onto the lens of my camera. I've gotten to the point where I can tell when they are about to do that, so it doesn't startle me anymore.

 I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but it is between a layer of webbing and the leaf. On its back.

 This is the one I think might be a marbled orb weaver. Still haven't been able to get a good look at it, but at least I know it's catching food.