Elusive Imago Lepidoptera

A miracle happened in my backyard today.

I actually took a picture of a butterfly.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A swallowtail, possibly spicebush swallowtail. There are several swallowtails that look very similar, and I didn't get good enough pictures to really work out the species.

Other Bugs:

 White marked tussock moth caterpillar

 The katydid nymph is still on the same plant. I am waiting for it to molt, and I hope it sticks around afterward. It doesn't seem to be eating, but I only see it for a minute or so every day. I don't know what it does with the rest of its time.

Grasshopper nymph. I am surprised at how few grasshoppers I have seen this year.

I was tempted to make this Backyard Bug of the Day:

 There was one rock on the stone steps out front that had a lot of tiny insects zooming around on it. They were all too small to recognize, particularly at speed, and they did not want to be photographed, but I did get this shot.

 

 It kind of looks like a tiny cricket, but I am not going to go so far as to say that's what it is.

 One of the banded tussock moth caterpillars is still on that tree.

More goldenrod has come into bloom, and it is very popular with insects.

 Can you see the two looper caterpillars?

Mostly it is attracting bees and wasps; so far I have not seen beetles or moths. It's kind of fun to just stand and watch what comes and goes–it all happens very fast. I took a whole bunch of pictures, clicking again and again, and every shot has different insects. Look all around these next few to see what flew in and out. If you're really good at bug spotting, you might see blurry things in the backgrounds of the photos that you will recognize as bugs zooming by:

 Oh, yes, there was one fly among the bees and wasps.

 

 Skipper. That's two butterflies in one day. There might still be a lot of caterpillars on the blog today, but at least there are a couple of imago (adult) Lepidoptera, not just larvae.

 Sweat bee

 Double-toothed prominent

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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I'm not sure what was going on here, but I think that the wasp is caught in the spider's web. I eventually scared the spider into its funnel den: