Ah, the first day of autumn in the backyard! It was hot.
Yesterday I had a conversation with some neighbors about the wildlife in the area, and I mentioned that there are no squirrels around anymore, which was an exaggeration, because there are squirrels, but I hardly ever see them. Then today I opened my back door to this:
I recently broke open some butternuts on those stones, and left the cracked nuts on the ground. I also left several intact nuts on the back porch, which were gone the next morning. My guess is that the squirrel was gathering the remnants of the nuts I opened.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
It looks a lot like a western conifer seed bug, but I think it's something else. The back legs look more like a leaf-footed bug.
Other Bugs:
Fly
Still finding banded tussock moth caterpillars everywhere:
Cricket
I found this white hickory tussock moth caterpillar in a spot where it was difficult to get a picture of it, because of height, angle, and the lighting. It was in a shadow, dark enough that I didn't see the other insect in the picture until I looked at it on the computer. It's bright red, you'd think I would have noticed it.
It's a stinkbug nymph, and you can see it is about to jab its rostrum, or "beak," into the caterpillar to feed on it.
And speaking of Hemiptera mouth parts, take a look at the beak on this assassin bug on goldenrod.
Goldenrod was the flower of choice for the honeybees today:
Which made it a good place for assassin bugs, although none of the ones I saw had caught anything.
Bumblebee on autumn joy sedum
Katydid, male
Arachnid Appreciation:
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