The Early Bird Can Keep the Worm

Contrary to expectation, I was able to do a bug walk today. I got home before dark (though it was pretty dark all day) and it wasn't raining, so... here I am. But I am really tired, and want to go to bed early, so here's today's bugs without any further ruminations, in the order that I took them.

 Love bug minus a leg

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar

 Ditto

 Ladybeetle pupa

 Three sleepy bees

 Assassin bug with hoverfly prey

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of Hemiptera. The goldenrod has gone to seed in some places.

 Winter fireflies feeding on the center rib of catalpa leaves is a common sight lately.

Pretty wings.

Good night.

A Charming Surprise

I believe I have mentioned about a dozen times that I hate gardening. I love gardens, but I don't want to have anything to do with making them what they are. I do the bare minimum in my own yard, and that includes planting only perennials. People gush about planting annuals, because they supposedly bloom all season, but I'll take the short-blooming seasons of perennials that you don't have to replant every year. Except this year I made an exception, because I found a flower that I really, really loved, and I decided that just this once, this year, I would plant an annual, because I would then have these gorgeous flowers all summer long. I even dead-headed the spent blooms, because that is supposed to encourage more flower growth. Except it didn't. And the plant didn't bloom all summer, it only bloomed for a couple of weeks. I am kind of mad about this–if I am going to go to the trouble of digging holes in the ground and putting in plants that I paid good money for, I expect a decent return, either years and years of short blooming seasons, or in this case one glorious summer of gorgeous flowers. And I didn't get it. I harrumph at the plants when I walk by them, which I do every day, because they are planted along the front walk. But apparently when I am harrumphing I don't always look at them very closely, because today suddenly I found this:

 In full bloom. I didn't notice the bud, or even the interim blooming steps. This was a wonderful surprise when I went outside to get the mail today.

 The bees liked it, too. I did look for more buds, on this and the other plants, but didn't find any.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Basically, I didn't find much today. I think this is some kind of chrysalis, and chrysalides count as insects, so... here you go.

After having had a heat wave for the beginning of the week, the temperature today was about 20º cooler. The overnight low on Wednesday night was 73ºF, and last night it was 46ºF. Quite a drop. That may be why there were not many bugs out and about today.

Oh, and by the way, I am probably not going to be able to do a bug walk tomorrow, so there is probably not going to be a post tomorrow.

Other Bugs:

 Grasshopper

 Weevil

 Fly (I am never going to learn to identify flies, either by genera, genus, species... any of that).

There were still a good number of crane flies fluttering around:

 Big ones...

 ... and small ones.

And some that were propagating their species.

And I can hear a LOT of crickets, and even saw a couple:

 

 So uncooperative.

 Assassin bug with fly

Now THIS I find creepy.

 Ten legs is my threshold of creepiness. I am not sure if this is a millipede or a centipede–OF COURSE this one is not in my books (and yes, I know, it's not an insect, but the books do cover other arthropods).

And while we're on the subject of things people find creepy, do not look at this next picture if you have ophidiophobia (fear of snakes):
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It was watching me...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Daddy-long-legs

 Bowl and doily spider. I saw a bug bounce off the bottom of this web like an upside-down trampoline. Which I am aware would not work, but that's the analogy I'm going with.

Missing Out

If you follow social media and popular culture, you've probably heard of FOMO–Fear Of Missing Out, which is what keeps people glued to their various social media accounts. They have to keep checking things obsessively, because, well, they are afraid of missing out. There is a version of this that afflicts photographers, and is why a lot of photographers always have a camera with them, even if it's just in the back seat of their car when they go places. It's why I have had a camera in my purse for over ten years (I don't have a cell phone, but I do have another device with a camera in it, too, that I often have with me). For one of the years I have been doing this blog I used to do my bug walk before I ate breakfast, because before breakfast I would go out and get the newspaper, and if I was going out to get the newspaper I had to bring my camera in case I saw some interesting bug, and so I would end up doing my bug walk, then bringing in the newspaper and THEN having breakfast. It wasn't the greatest way of arranging my time, so now I don't do it, but every time I go outside to get the paper or the mail, I feel like I should bring my camera outside with me. I don't, because it seems silly to bring my camera just to walk to the end of the driveway to find the paper wherever it has been delivered on any given day, but there are definitely days when I wish I had brought it with me. Sometimes whatever interesting thing I see sticks around long enough for me to to in and get the camera and come back out to take pictures. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Photographing bugs can be very much about seizing the moment. But today when I went out to get the paper I saw a huge, beautiful spider web on the side of the house, pretty high up, but big enough that I could still have taken a good picture of it, even if the spider would have ended up very small. It was in the sun, so it was well lit for a picture, the spider was sitting right in the middle of the web, the web was intact, though a bit dusty, which just made it more visible. I thought about going in to get my camera to take a picture of it right away, but there didn't seem to be much point–it was a spider web, it wasn't going to go anywhere, it couldn't fly away. So I went inside and ate my breakfast. Well, by the time I went out to do my bug walk, the sun had moved enough that that part of the house was in the shade, which wouldn't have been a deterrent to taking the picture, it just wouldn't have been lit so beautifully well. But the spider web was gone. There was just one tiny corner of it left, and no sign of the spider. I had not seized the moment, and I missed out. I did spot it later, sitting in that little corner of the web, so I'll see tomorrow if it has built a big, beautiful one overnight.

Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 Oleander aphids. I know that most people, particularly gardeners, don't like aphids, but I do. I think they are cute, particularly this species, and they are a pretty important part of the insect diet in my backyard. There are a lot of insects that eat aphids, and ants feed on their excretions of honeydew. There aren't any ants tending to these aphids, but it's a pretty common sight in my backyard to see ants protecting aphids like livestock. They're interesting little creatures. This particular swarm (I don't know what the proper name is a for a group of aphids) is on a milkweed plant. I have found it odd this summer how few insects have been on the milkweed plants, because usually they are a haven for a LOT of different kinds of insects, but this one plant has been host to a pretty huge number of aphids for the last couple of months.

 And speaking of having to hurry to get pictures of things, sometimes it isn't necessary. This cricket was Backyard Bug of the Day a couple of weeks ago, even though I realized at a certain point while taking its picture that it is dead. Well, it's still in the exact same spot.

 Buffalo tree hopper

Stinkbug

Assassin bug

Katydid. I think this is the only live insect I have here today that is not in the order Hemiptera. (It's in the order Orthoptera, in case you're wondering).

Today was not a buggy day in the backyard. Sunny, windy, but not buggy. So that's all I have for you.

Backyard Amphibian That I Almost Ran Over With The Lawnmower of the Day:

 Here is is hiding under the back porch. I really wish the frogs would not wait until the last second to reveal themselves and hop out of the way of the mower, but that is what they always do. Funny thing is, I had probably walked past that frog, stepping within a foot of it, at least 10 times before I got the lawn mower out, and it stayed hidden. It had to wait until the danger arrived.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Speaking of aphids, on another milkweed plant elsewhere in the backyard, one was captured by this jumping spider.

Always Learning, Thanks to Books

I don't always get to choose what time I go out and do my bug walk, but given a choice, I would never choose dusk. It's probably obvious why; it's too dark. But there is sort of an artificial dusk that happens when the sun dips below the level of the trees, it's darker than just afternoon shade. It's hard to take pictures in that kind of light (obviously the light on the camera is absolutely necessary), but it's also hard to find bugs. And lately I have become acutely aware of how much earlier in the day darkness begins to fall. Because... it's fall. The shortening of the days is palpable. Today circumstances meant that I would be doing my bug walk during this tree-induced dusk, and I kind of didn't mind, because today was terribly hot and humid, so I figured that at least doing my bug walk in the early evening meant it would be cooler. But it wasn't, so I had the worst of both worlds: darkness, with the temperature still in the 80s and high humidity. Blech.

Today's Backyard Bug of the Day provides an example of what I was talking about the other day when I mentioned how frequently I am wrong.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I always thought that these Kywere a pale variation of the candy striped leaf hopper (Graphocephala coccinea), but my most recently acquired (which I actually acquired last Christmas) insect field guide, Insects of New England and New York, has a lot more species of leaf hoppers than my others do, and perusing it last night I realized that this is, in fact, a different species, Kyboasca splendida. So, even though I have seen these a million times before, and posted pictures of them for years, they have technically never been Backyard Bug of the Day. Until now.

 I should have realized that these were a different species; they are smaller than the candy striped leaf hoppers. And since this is clearly an adult, it's not like it's going to grow bigger.

 These were all over the place tonight.

I still don't know what species of nymph this is, but it is feasible that it is the Backyard Bug of the Day's nymph form, since there are a lot of them hanging around the same areas. But I'm not going to make any assumptions.

Also all over the place, not just tonight, but the last couple of weeks:

 Crane flies. Multiple species. I am finding them a lot less cooperative than they are in the springtime. They are easily frightened away, so I don't get pictures of them much. This is one of the smaller species.

I took this just before it was frightened away. One of the larger species.

How to find a tree cricket:

 Bumblebee

 Plant hopper. One thing about taking pictures at dusk: you get dramatic lighting. Of course, it's not as dark as it appears in the pictures; it wasn't pitch black out. But that's how the camera handles these situations. With the bright light on the subject, the background is very dark by contrast. I am sure there are technical terms involved here, but I don't know them, I just take the pictures.

 Also ubiquitous: white hickory tussock moth caterpillars. I saw a lot of them today, and they were more than usually active, walking around, rather than just sitting on leaves or eating. Of course, some of them were doing those things, too.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Dramatic lighting!

Jumping spider

Jumping spider