Cloudy

The weather forecast for today said it would be cloudy in the morning, and then sunny in the afternoon, so I figured I would wait for the sunshine to do my bug walk. It didn't come. Yet another cloudy, dark day for photography of tiny things that don't like to sit still.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

I think this is a blinded sphinx caterpillar. It's an early instar, and sphinx moth caterpillars grow to a pretty big size, as caterpillars go.

 Fun fact about sphinx moth caterpillars: many of them have a spike on their back ends and no one knows what it's for. It's not a stinger.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Red-headed bush cricket.

 Female.

Other Bugs:

 The strange thing is still where it was yesterday.

The autumn joy sedum was host to...

Bumblebees and flies...

 ... and bumblebees and ants...

 ... and honey bees.

 The contracted datanas have moved to another branch.

 I noticed this in one of my shots of them, although I didn't notice when I took the picture–this caterpillar is oozing some dark liquid out of its mouth. It wasn't doing that in all of the pictures. Then I took (but didn't post, because they didn't come out well) some pictures of the group from another angle, and in those pictures another caterpillar as doing this. I don't know if they are sick, infected with a bacteria or fungus, or is that a defense thing... No idea. It's pretty gross, though.

 Wasp

 The Angel is still in the spot where I first saw it two days ago.

 Banded tussock moth caterpillars

 This one just molted.

 Ant and aphids

 There are tiny, baby aphids there.

 Tiny wasp

 Cricket

 Stinkbug exuvia

 Stinkbug sucking the plant juices out of my hazelnuts.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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This nursery web spider is in the same spot as yesterday, but facing the other direction.