Quads

 In my head I have divided my backyard paths into quadrants, as there are four individual loop sections that begin and end near the house. On my bug walks I peruse these four quadrants, not in any particular order, and check a few smaller areas as well. But as far as keeping track of my progress, generally if I have only limited time to do my bug walk, I reference for myself how many quadrants I have done. But today I thought about them in a different respect: I didn't find any bugs to photograph until the fourth quadrant. I did see some bugs, mostly on the Japanese knotweed, that even in the early evening when I was out there was teeming with insects, but only a small percentage of the bugs I see are really photographable, generally due to movement and/or location. The bugs on the Japanese knotweed were not ready for their closeups. But the bugs I did photograph were all close to each other, and I think I could probably draw a nearly straight line along where I found them, and it would only be about forty feet long. It was a very narrow swath of insect life. Wait, I remember now that I did photograph some ants in the area of the second quadrant. But all of the others I am going to show you, including the spider, were in a straight line from the back porch steps to the field at the edge of our original property line.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

I was unable to determine what kind of caterpillar this is, because there were several that looked similar in the book, and this is an early instar, and often caterpillars look very different in the later instars, which are the ones that make it into the books.

Other Bugs:

These ants are on a wild lettuce flower that has gone to seed but not fully opened to release the seeds. I don't know if the ants made that hole, or if something else did.

Milkweed tussock moth caterpillar

Some kind of predatory Hemiptera with the insect if caught as prey

It's hard to see, but there are two caterpillars here, under a thick web on a leaf. And if you look at the bottom of the picture...

... you can see a stinkbug nymph. I don't know if the nymph is just passing by or is trying to get into this tent to prey on the caterpillars.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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This is similar to a spider I have seen the last couple of days, but the shape is different, so either they are related species or possibly male and female of the same species. Some day I have to get a spider guide.