The Bugs in the Backyard: Click, Click, Clickety-Click

If you had gone for a walk in my backyard around the middle of this gorgeous September afternoon you would have found some bugs, some birds, a baby rabbit, and a happy photographer. It is an absolute JOY to do your work with tools that function properly! I was grinning today as I clicked the shutter.

And it wasn't just because my camera is working properly again. It was, in part, because I FINALLY got pictures of the bug I have been trying to get pictures of for over a week.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Some kind of Tachinid fly, from the genus Trichopoda.

Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America says they "resemble bees, often with a fringe of hairs on the hind legs that resembles a 'pollen basket.'" Fringe of hairs on the hind legs, check.

The pictures aren't great but at least I got them.

Today was another 2-butterfly day:

The first was a male who was ready to fly when I brought him outside.

The other was a female, who eclosed slightly later (as I expected), and wasn't quite ready to go when I brought her out. It feels like such a privilege to hold a butterfly in my hand.

She didn't hang around long on the tree where I placed her, though.

The other reason I was happy today:

I found the cricket that was in the house! It was hiding inside an umbrella in the back hall. It is AMAZING how loud an insect less than half an inch long can be!

The rest of the bugs I am going to post in the order that I found them, because I took a LOT of pictures today, and it's just a lot to be organized about.

Thanks to the fact that my camera is working today, so I can use a faster shutter speed, I was finally able to get some okay pictures of the wasps that hang out on the tree on the back porch.

Beetle

Still trying to get good pictures of the bugs on those flowering plants I don't know the name of (Today's BBotD was photographed on those plants).

Tree crickets are everywhere lately.

Adult assassin bug

The Godzilla caterpillars–I mean the double-toothed prominent caterpillars are still hanging around.

Weevil

Assassin bug nymph with aphid prey

Possibly some kind of Ichneumon wasp?

What's this, you wonder? A caterpillar inside a rolled-up leaf.

Another tree cricket

Wasp (or possibly sawfly) laying eggs (I think) on a leaf with sawfly larvae feeding on it. Bad move for the wasp; the larva will probably eat the eggs before they can hatch.

Crane fly

Earwig and candy-striped leaf hopper

I think these are lacebug larvae.

Caterpillar

Katydid

There is a bug that has been hanging out on the stile for the last couple of weeks; a nymph of a leaf-footed bug that was BBotD a while ago. I see it every day there. Today, the nymph was gone, and there was this adult leaf-footed bug. I wonder if they are one and the same?

It is SO HARD to get a good picture of a tumbling flower beetle!

Tiny caterpillar (or other kind of larva, I'm not sure, I didn't see how many prolegs it had), and tinier aphid nymphs.

Katydid

I was right, by the way, the lady beetle larva I posted yesterday is now a pupa.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Today I found 2 arrow-shaped micrathena spiders: