A Walk In The Dark

 It's the second day of autumn, which means that the weather has decided to assert its right to make independent choices about how to behave, regardless of season, and so we have gone back to summer weather. While looking at my pictures from my bug walk this evening, and seeing how truly disappointing it was, I was reminded of the big spider that has not spun a web all week because it's been too cold at night, and I decided to go outside and check if she's building one tonight. To my dismay, she was gone. But then, in the dark of night, I decided to do another bug walk, and ended up having a bit of a Lepidoptera Lollapalooza, but not due to the porch light. I walked around the backyard with the ring light on my camera, checking out the flowers that are in bloom, and found quite a lot of moths–and a few other insects, too. My afternoon bug walk provided 75 pictures. My nighttime bug walk provided about 130.

Backyard Bug of the Day (Night):

And the other night bugs:

Some kind of geometer moth

Plume moth

Ah, one of the most difficult species of moth for me to photograph during the day; it was more cooperative tonight. Grape Leaf Folder moth.

Dorsal view

 It wasn't all moths that were out tonight:

A couple of female meadow katydids

Earwig

Ladybeetle. It's hard to see, but there are tiny aphids there and the ladybeetle is eating one.

Mosquito, male. Male mosquitoes don't bite, they only feed on flower nectar.

 

Some kind of Hemiptera on a tree branch

 

Another Hemiptera on goldenrod, which, as you can probably tell, is where I found most of the bugs on my night bug walk.

Not this leaf hopper, though, which was on the side of the house.
 

 

Stilt bug

I didn't find nearly as many insects during the day, except for stilt bugs:

Bugs in general may be down in numbers this year, but I don't think I have ever seen so many stilt bugs.

Stilt bug on thisle
 

This moth is so small that when I saw it flying from leaf to leaf I thought it was a fly, because I could not see its features well enough to determine otherwise.
 

Large milkweed bugs, nymphs and adults, doing what they do: sucking fluids out of milkweed seeds.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Nursery web spider on autumn joy sedum

And another

The orb weaver in its bower; it was there this afternoon, so I assumed it would be there this evening, but it must have decided to go elsewhere to build a web.

Though I didn't find the orb weaver I was looking for, there were quite a few spiders, of various species, on the prowl in the dark tonight: