Walking Stick

Today, for the first time in weeks, the sun was shining in my backyard (for most of the day) and I saw a bug that just made my day (that makes me sound like a geek, but so be it). There are days when I don't see a lot of bugs and it's disappointing, and there are days when I don't see a lot of bugs but I see one bug that is amazing and makes me not care that there weren't a lot of other bugs, and this was one of those days.
It's not a new bug for me or my backyard. But it is one that I have seen so rarely that it is still special and exciting to see one. It used to be the one bug I was looking for, and I do actually look for it still, never thinking I will find one (and frankly, it's hard to see, even though it's a pretty big bug). And what is it?

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Stick insect! I think this is a northern walking stick, aka common stick bug.

As you probably know, insects have six legs, so looking at this you may think that it is missing a pair of legs, but it holds the front pair of legs out in front of it when it is trying to look like a stick in order to go unnoticed. It does have antennae, too, and the legs and antennae are just there together.

I spent years trying to find one of these in my backyard, and was thrilled when I found one last year. At the time I did some reading about them, and found out that in the fall is when they come down from the trees to lay eggs, so there was no point in looking around for them in the spring and summer. But now that it's autumn, I have been on the lookout, particularly in the area where I saw one last year, which was near the base of an oak tree, which is one of their food plants. Well, this one was in a different part of the backyard from the other one last year, but it was near the base of an oak. I actually gasped when I saw it. Seeing one once last year was not enough to take away the excitement of seeing one.

You can kind of see the legs and antennae here.

I took a lot of pictures of this and then continued with my bug walk, feeling like I didn't care if I found anything else, that this was a successful day of bug hunting regardless. But I kept going back to check if it was still there, and whenever I did, I had a hard time finding it again. It stayed in the same area, on the same few plants, but it looks so much like a stick, or like the tall, brown stalks of grass near there that even know it was there, and looking for it, it was hard to spot.

Here you can see that it is not holding its legs out ahead of it, and the antennae are spread apart:

But when I got close, it pulled its legs out in front again, trying to look like a stick again.

The stick insect was still there when my husband got home, so I showed it to him. Here it is on his hand, to give you an idea of its size.

It seems like more mushrooms pop up every day. Actually, they probably do:

These are just as vibrant as they look in the picture, which makes me wonder how I could possibly have missed them yesterday. I can't imagine they just came up today, although mushrooms are very dynamic and they do seem to grow visibly fast.

The mourning dove fledglings were hanging out in the vegetable garden again today. Well, two were in the garden, two were outside the fence, and one very stupidly kept trying to fly through the fence. The tree next to the garden is where the mourning doves had a nest much earlier in the year, and I wonder if they had another brood there in recent weeks and I just didn't notice.

It is fortunate that I was already satisfied with my bug walk when I found the stick insect near the start, because I didn't find a lot of other insects. Other Bugs:

Wasp

 Stink bug

 A pair of speckled sharpshooters

 Here you can see the lower one excreting a drop of honeydew.

 This was a pretty startling find on my picnic table. I never would have guessed that these were the same species of bee; that is an amazing size difference between male and female.

 A species of cricket that has not appeared in a while

This caterpillar is still hanging around in the same cluster of leaves on the oak tree, but the number of leaves there are dwindling as it eats them:

I think you can kind of see here how well that camouflage works, green like the leaf, but with markings that look like a brown and yellow leaf edge.

It's been a few days since I have seen any butterflies; today I saw three, and got pictures of two:

Mourning cloak. It's looking quite worn out, but mourning cloaks overwinter as adults, so this one could still be flying next spring. They are usually the first butterfly species I see in the spring, and they usually look pretty beat up. They overwinter in cracks of tree bark, wood piles, and places like that. Still, winter is a couple of months away...

Pearl crescent

Crane fly

Beetle

Hopper nymph

Brown hooded owlet moth caterpillar. I mentioned this one the other day when I took a picture of every caterpillar I saw on that day, as one that I expect to see this time of year, but did not see that day. And today, it was on a plant right next to my back porch.

Small milkweed bug. This may be the first one I have seen this year; if not, it has certainly been a long while since I have seen one.

I didn't see anywhere near as many spiders today, but I did see a few today that were not part of the spider bonanza yesterday. Arachnid Appreciation:

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Bowl and doily spider. I didn't see one of these yesterday.

This is the only species of jumping spider I know the name of: bold jumping spider. I love them for their amazing green chelicerae, which I was unable to get a picture of. This is another species I didn't see yesterday.

Jumping spider with fly prey

Flower crab spider

For the third time in about a week (okay 8 days) I saw a snake in my backyard. This has been the snakiest year ever since we bought this land 19 years ago. This could actually be the same snake I saw a couple of days ago, since it was in the same general area, but I can't tell. Backyard Reptile of the Day (still hoping for a tortoise some day):
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