Missed Window

 A hot day, and I didn't get to do my bug walk until evening, so I didn't find much today. But I have been thinking about it, and I recall that 9 summers ago when I started searching for bugs in my backyard, and for several years thereafter, I could do my bug walks at dusk and still find a lot of bugs. There didn't used to be such a narrow opportunity, a window of time when bugs would be around. They were just always there. Something has changed in the last few years, and I think there just aren't as many bugs out there to be found. It saddens and worries me.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

But there is some good news from my backyard today. This plant...

... is NOT invasive! It is a plant called virgin's bower, and is native to North America. I am relieved. I spend a LOT of my time and energy trying to eradicate invasive plants in my backyard, and it is a job I have been struggling with for over twenty years now. And last summer we added almost 35 acres to our backyard, much of it overrun with invasive plants. I am never going to win this battle. So to find a new plant, a really pretty one that the pollinators like, and then find out that it might be just another thing I have to fight against was discouraging. There is a small patch of it in my regular backyard, and I also found some on the new property. I have never seen it in my backyard before this year, but I wonder how long it has been growing in the field that we now own. Anyway, when I looked it up, and found it could be one of two things, I made sure to find out how to tell the difference. The flowers are basically identical, apparently, but the leaves of the native and the invasive are different. The native plant has toothed leaves...

... so I checked today, and was thrilled to see these lovely, toothed leaves! The plant can stay! Huzzah~

Other Bugs:

 Sawfly larva

This is one of those fun, weird things about bugs that I learned first by observing, and then by looking up information about what I had observed. But observing is key. For instance, you look at a flower, and there is a weird clump of plant bits sitting on top of it, in a way that you wouldn't expect plant bits to randomly fall and arrange themselves:

  So you look closer and realize it's not just random plant bits. It's a caterpillar that has random plant bits stuck to it. Now, if this was the first time I ever looked at something like this, I don't think I would see the caterpillar part from this view. In fact, I didn't notice it when I took the picture, though I can see it now as I look at it.

 But I can see it here. And I think the first time I ever realized that something looking like this was a caterpillar, the only reason I figured it out is because it moved. But now, I know enough about it to recognize it as a camouflaged looper even if it stays perfectly still. In case you're having trouble seeing it, the head and legs of the caterpillar are on the lower left end of the loop. The rear and prolegs are on the lower right. The flower is a purple coneflower.

 Milkweed tussock moth caterpillar. I have been finding these on milkweed in various places in the backyard, but spread far apart from each other, never groups together like you sometimes see with these.

 The fall webworms look very organized today.

Arachnid Appreciation: 

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What's interesting to me about the location this spider has chosen is that its a dead leaf wedged between the needles of a pine tree. It's not a stable spot, but that doesn't seem to matter to the spider.