Taste Test

Today as I ate my lunch at the picnic table in my backyard there were monarch butterflies exploring the milkweed patch. There were at least two of them, but there could have been more; they would come and go. One in particular spent a lot of time there, visiting a lot of the plants. There are no flowers left on the milkweed plants, so she was not there feeding, she was just there to lay eggs. What she would do is land on a plant, tap the leaf with her feet, and then usually fly to another plant. I could tell that she was not laying eggs in most places because they lay their eggs on the underside of leaves. What I figured she was doing was testing the leaves to decide if they would be good hosts for her offspring. Butterflies taste with their feet, and I just learned in the online class I am taking that what cabbage white butterflies do is tap the leaves to see if they will emit a particular chemical that is contained in their host plants (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts...). I think maybe that is what the monarch butterfly was doing. I did see her lay a couple of eggs; in fact, from where he was sitting my husband could see one of the newly laid eggs when the butterfly flew away.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 This is some kind of hopper nymph. I have not yet figured out what kind. This kind of nymph does a swaying dance before it hops away, shifting side to side. I don't know what the purpose is.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Another hopper nymph, but based on what it looks like I think it might be a candy striped leaf hopper. The white spikes are a "waxy secretion," and I don't know what they are for. I have read they are for defense, but nothing ever explains how they are used for defense.

Here's a bug spotting test for you:

 Can you see an insect?

 There it is!

 This fly was on that plant, too, but not when I took the picture.

Twice today I saw bits of fluff dangling from trees that turned out to be caterpillars:

 This one was tiny, maybe an eighth of an inch long.

 Closer look.

 This one was a bit bigger, about half an inch.

More hoppers:

 How many can you see?

 Moth

I was able to find some milkweed tussock moth caterpillars today:

 I think this is probably from Brood1.

 Brood 3

 Brood 4

 Cricket

I thought these were blueberry sawfly larvae, because I found them on my blueberry bush, but when I looked up blueberry sawfly larvae they didn't look anything like this.