Everything's Vine

Today's bug walk was interrupted less than halfway through by thunder, and later when it was safe to go outside again I almost didn't because I had other things to do, and I didn't think I was going to find anything interesting, having not found anything interesting the first time I went out. Also, the pants I wear for doing my bug walk had wet hems because they are really too long for me and had been dragging in the wet grass the first time I went out and I thought it would be icky to put them back on again. I did end up going out again, and it was icky putting on pants that were wet and cold around the ankles, but it was worth it because all of the interesting things I saw today were on the second bug walk, including the Backyard Bug of the Day.
Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Rove beetle. I chose a rove beetles as BBotD recently, but it was a different species. This one is much smaller, and there was a tiny swarm of them on a rock. I have never seen a swarm of rove beetles before, I have only ever seen them singly. Rove beetles are a family of beetles I find very amusing, because they have such short elytra but are able to tuck their wings underneath anyway. You can see a tiny bit of this one's wing sticking out. I also like the way they tuck them in, by raising up their back end to shove the wings into place. Sometimes when I have observed them they have flexed and retucked their wings repeatedly, but today none of them did that.

The rest of the pictures are terrible, but I am posting them anyway:

 I was trying to get a picture to show that there were at least ten or so of them on the rock, but they were too far apart. Note how much of this one's wings are sticking out.

 I managed to get three in this shot.

 There is a little bit of moss growing on the rock, and some of them crawled around on the moss, appearing to be delving for something (food, probably. I have no idea what they eat).

Other Bugs:

 Tiny wasp

 Ladybeetle hiding out from the rain in a curled up leaf.

 I annoyed it and it crawled out of hiding.

 Candy striped leaf hopper

The crickets from yesterday were still on their trees, in the same spots...

 ... the only difference for this one being that now it has rain on it.

This candy striped leaf hopper was grooming itself with its legs:

 

 It was really quite amusing to watch.

I don't know why this grasshopper sits with its legs and wings poking up.

I don't know what this bug is called, but I start to see a lot of them around this time of year. This is the first one this year.

Bristletail

I heard very few crickets today, but this tree cricket was quite active, crawling around on this bush.

You may recall a couple of days ago when the dead morning glory vines were so attractive to flies. Since then there have been no flies on the plants, and there weren't any during my first bug walk, but when I went outside again there were a variety of fly species on the morning glory vines and the (not dead) honeysuckle vines growing on the same arbor:

And on that same subject, Arachnid Appreciation:
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Does this scenario look familiar? The last couple of days, when there were no flies on the dead vines there was also no spider, but today it was back, in the same spot... and there is a fly, tantalizingly too far away...

Nursery web spider

I continued on my bug walk after taking that picture, and some of the other flies on the vine, and then a few minutes later, when I was done, I came back to see if the spider had caught anything yet, and it was gone. So, I peeked under the leaf it had been resting on (which was stuck to the leaf under it):

... and there it was...

... and I figured out why I have never seen a nursery web spider with prey before. Apparently when they catch something they hide somewhere to eat it!

This spider looks a lot like lichen...

... and you can see why that is a handy feature.

I came across an interesting scenario, and I apologize for the terrible pictures, but it was windy, and I couldn't scare away my subjects by grabbing the vine to steady it:

I spotted these two jumping spiders, one under a leaf, and one on the vine stem. It was clear that they were watching each other...

The bigger one raised its front legs...

The smaller one creeps closer...

... the bigger one backs off a bit...

... and then...

 There was no fight, just posturing, though they did make contact with their front legs.

 

After this the bigger one retreated back down the vine, all the way down, past...

... this other jumping spider. I am not sure about the first two (which I at first thought could be male and female of the same species, and they might), but this one is clearly a different species.

Here's the scene. The one that retreated is on the right, under the vine.

The new one advances up the vine... The other one looks like it is looking for a way out, but there's nothing close enough to jump to.

They are ready to grapple... they did a little bit, and then the first spider zipped away over the edge of the leaf. I thought it just crawled to the underside, but when I looked I could not find it.

I guess this one won the field...

... but this one was still at the end of the vine.