The Plunge

I've gradually come to abandon expectations when it comes to looking for bugs in my backyard. Clearly, I have no idea what I am going to find, since I so often have thought it would be a buggy day and it's not, or I expect to find nothing, and find lots of things. But it did seem like today would be a day of few insects, given that the high temperature was more typical for December than October. However, when I went outside to get the mail shortly after noon, when the temperature was in the low 40s, about half of the rock garden was in the sun, and I could see that at least there were flies there, and I saw one cricket scurrying under the ground cover leaves. So I had hope for my bug walk. I decided to wait until it had warmed up a little bit more, and for the entire rock garden to be in the sun. I did manage that first objective, but by the time I got outside most of the rock garden was back in the shade, and I didn't see any insects there. I didn't have a lot of hope of finding anything in the colder, shadier areas. And it is true that I didn't find much. But what I did find was surprising, even if I have already established that nothing should be surprising anymore. I will also admit that I didn't spend as much time outside as I usually do, mostly because I am not acclimated to the cold yet, and it was really windy, which made it worse. So I walked through the backyard quite a bit faster than I usually do, though I was still looking for bugs.

First, Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Cricket. This might be a jumping bush cricket. I don't think she (it's a female, note the ovipositor) can probably jump very well at this point, as she is missing one of her rear legs (and one front leg), which I think are the jumping legs, but she might be able to jump with just one. It's not uncommon to find insects that are missing legs, or have battered wings, particularly so late in the season. It means they survived something trying to eat them. Anyway, she didn't try to jump away, probably because she was too cold.

 And on the same tree trunk, tree cricket. I don't know which species, there are several that are very similar.

 I have seen these smallish, red dragonflies the last few sunny days, but they have not been cooperative. This one at least let me get this close, but I would have liked to get closer.

My big surprise:

 American copper butterfly. I was a bit surprised to see this back, since it was cold, and I haven't seen any butterflies for a few days. And these asters in front of the rocks down by the street were abandoned the last couple of days. But the butterfly was back today. It stayed very still on this flower for at least a minute while I was watching it...

 But then it began to move around and feed on the flowers. It had company, too.

There were at least two thread-waisted wasps in the general vicinity of these flowers.

I don't know if it was the chill (it was definitely warmer down in front of the rocks, in full sun, and the rocks hold the solar heat), but this thread-waisted wasp was kind of clumsy. It fell off the flowers once, and then flying around it crashed into me and fell to the ground.

 Leaf hopper

The insects least likely to be annoyed by today's sudden drop in temperature:

 I found a few winter fireflies again. They don't mind that it feels like winter.

 This one is still in its favorite spot.