Basking

I do it all the time, but I don't like starting out these posts with commentary on the weather. And yet, the weather is relevant to insects. So, I continue to do it. Mind you, I like talking about the weather. It is generally regarded as the quintessential boring topic of conversation, but weather is fascinating. Why not talk about it? So here's why the weather is interesting right now. At around 3 a.m. this past Friday it was 68ºF. At three in the morning! The next day, at three in the morning on Saturday, we were having our first frost of the season. We've had frost every night since, except I don't think it will happen tonight. And by the end of the week, possibly we will have our first snow. All of this is relevant to a human in a variety of ways, but for an insect it can mean life or death. And for those who don't die just because the temperature has dropped below freezing, it can still affect their ability to function. Insects are ectothermic. They can't control their body temperature, or create their own heat; their body temperature, and therefore their ability to function metabolically, is regulated by external conditions–the temperature of the air, the warmth of sunlight or a warm surface. It's why on chilly days there are so often insects basking on the side of the house that faces the sun. Or on rocks. Or even on a leaf, it the sun is on it. In order to fly, or eat, or do anything, insects have to be warm enough. When it gets this cold at night, the insects get cold, and it takes them a while to warm up enough to function during the day, if they can spend some time somewhere warm. And then, if it snows... Well, they're not all going to die, as many people assume about insects, but they're not going to be easy for me to find, that's for sure. However, if the snow melts right away, and the sun comes out, chances are I will find them again. After all, the chrysanthemums are still blooming, and the nightly frosts don't seem to be doing them any harm.
As an example of all this:

I went outside to do my bug walk a little after 1 p.m. We had a freeze last night, and then it was a sunny day, and the temperature when I went outside was 53ºF. I found this bumblebee on a mum flower, motionless. I was outside for over an hour, and each time I walked by, this bee was in exactly the same spot. It moved a tiny bit, changing positions, and as I was going inside it was slowly crawling around on the petals of the flower, but it took a really long time today to get going.

This bumblebee was much more active; I saw it at the end of my bug walk.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't really have anything to say about this fly. I chose it because for some reason they were all over the place today.

And here's another interesting fly:

 When I first spotted this little vignette I assume it was a mating pair of insects, but when I looked closer I saw that it was a predator and prey. The prey is a flower fly, I don't know what kind of fly the predator is.

There weren't nearly as many insects on the mums today, but I did have the pleasure of finding one that has not been there every other day:

 Some kind of plant bug

Milkweed bug nymphs:

I did hear crickets singing today, and found three different species, but...

... I think this tree cricket might have been dead.

If not, it seems to have an ant problem.

This one was definitely dead.

This one was very much alive; I spotted it walking up the side of the house.

One thing about ground crickets is that you hear them singing, but you can't really use the sound to find them, because as soon as you come near them, and not even all that near, they stop singing. I have never actually seen one making noise. Until today. For some reason this cricket kept up its music when I walked over to it, and then continued to make sounds while I took pictures. Due to it being mostly covered I didn't get a great look at the process, but I could see the movement of the wings (I am not sure if they are wings. They don't fly. But they look like wings), as they expanded in and out. It was quite a thrilling moment. I tried to take video, but of course it stopped when I set the camera to video. And then it turned around and disappeared under the leaf.

Basking on tree trunks is a very popular insect pastime on sunny, chilly days.

The rocks down by the street are the warmest microclimate in my yard. It is where I saw the cricket above, and where I hear crickets the longest as the season gets colder. That general area is also the place where I most often see dragonflies. I was thinking about that today, because I was there at the end of my bug walk, and had not seen many bugs in the rest of my backyard. I thought about a particular species of dragonfly that I saw recently and had a hard time photographing, getting mediocre pictures (though I did make it BBotD that day). While I was thinking about that, I spotted a dragonfly on the rock ledge. Then just as I was about to try to maneuver myself into a good spot to get a picture of it without casting a shadow on it (this is a tricky time of year for insect photography, because the sun is getting lower, and shadows become a problem) or scaring it away, this landed right in front of me:

This is the smallest dragonfly I have ever seen. Compared to other dragonflies it is tiny.

It was cooperative, but in an awkward spot, and as I was trying to maneuver myself and my monopod, I looked down to look for a stable spot on the edge of the rock to place the monopod, and right where I was about to place it, I saw...

... this dragonfly. Much bigger. This is the one I had just been thinking about, that I got bad pictures of a couple of weeks ago. This one was very compliant, and I suspect it was resting on the rock as a way to warm up so it could be active. That's probably what all of them were doing.

If you're counting along, that was three dragonflies on the rock. I have never had so many resting together in my backyard. (I have sometimes seen swarms of them feeding on insects about twenty or thirty feet up in the air):

All three of them were very cooperative. I know the littlest one wasn't completely lethargic, because it flew there while I was watching.

Look at those gorgeous eyes!

I also almost leaned on this robber fly while trying to get a shot of the little one.

Here's the third one, which is actually the first one I spotted. It appears to be the same species as the little one, but not as little.

I spotted this woolly bear caterpillar walking along...

... which is one of the two things I see woolly bears doing. In fact, walking through the grass is usually where I see them. The other thing they do is just sit still. So I was watching this one walk, and it stopped to eat those tiny green plants. And I realized that this was the first time I have ever seen a woolly bear eat. I don't know what that plant is, and I don't know what they usually eat, but this was strangely new as an experience.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Spider eating a march fly