Imperfect Timing

 Today I had to make a decision: go outside and do my bug walk while most of the backyard was still in the sunshine, or wait for the temperature to get about 60ºF in the hopes that there would be more bugs around. Well, I decided to wait, the temperature never got that high, the backyard was almost completely in shade, and there were hardly any bugs to be found. It was a lose/lose decision. The cricket cacophony was quite subdued (and it's in the 30s now, so nothing is singing tonight). The good news, though, is that it rained all day yesterday, and the total rainfall for the week was over 2 inches. That's more rain than the last couple of months combined, I think. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration. Slight.

No Backyard Bug of the Day today...

 I found a black birch sapling that had a lot of candy striped leaf hoppers on it. Mostly they did not want to pose for pictures. Can you see the three in this one?

I just had to pause in my blogging because though I just said there are no crickets singing tonight, that actually only applied to the outdoors. A cricket started singing in the house, and I had to hunt for it. I hated having to put it outside in the cold, but I could not go with my softhearted instinct to let it stay in for the night, because it was LOUD and I do want to be able to sleep tonight.

 There are still large milkweed bugs around in the old garden bed:

Having been frustrated in my attempts to find bugs in the backyard for most of my bug walk, I checked out the plant that has been attracting the most bugs lately, an aster in the rock garden. If found a potters wasp in a stupor:

There was a paper wasp, too, but it was active, and not in the mood to pose for the camera. But elsewhere, I found this collection of thread-waisted wasps:

The two lower ones were in a stupor. The one on top of the plant was not.

Looper, standing on one aster while eating another.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I had to clean some gunk out of the rain gauge, and found this spider underneath it. Underneath the rain gauge has always been a popular spot for spiders, though not as much this year. Still, I always check to see if anything is living under there when I empty it.