I Fought the Lawn, And...

 Today I mowed the lawn for the first time in... well, I don't remember how long it's been since I mowed the lawn. I might have mowed it right after we got back from our trip in July, and I don't think I have mowed it since then (mostly because of weather reasons, but also because I am lazy and when given a choice between mowing the lawn or doing anything else at all I always chose the anything else), so it was pretty long. I use one of those old-fashioned reel mowers, for environmental reasons, and every day I put off the job just made it harder–the reel mower isn't great for the grass being long. But actually, the grass wasn't THAT long, it wasn't up to my knees or anything–the mowable parts of my backyard don't have that kind of grass. But there are a lot of non-grass plants, and everything is quite lush from all the rain this summer so... it was exhausting. I didn't want to do it. But I did try not to be as procrastinaty as I have been lately, because I really felt like I should mow the lawn today, and if I had allowed myself to be sidetracked by other things I might have run out of time (it takes a long time when it's so thick and tall), so I marched myself right out the door to get to work... and ended up being delayed about half an hour because of bugs. As scarce as bugs have been lately they were suddenly all over today, keeping me from getting as far as the shed to get out the lawnmower. First, I saw a lot of bugs in a garden bed right near the back door, so I had to go in and get my camera and spend some time taking pictures of them. Then I put the camera on the back porch and went to get the mower, but as I was unlocking the door I saw a cool bug on a tree and had to go back to the porch to get my camera, and on the way I saw another bug, so I came back with my camera, photographed the first bug, then couldn't find the second one and had to spend some time looking for it (never found it), and then found another one, and... well, you can see how my afternoon went. I am not complaining, though. It was great. I haven't seen so many bugs in a LONG time. Mostly I saw crickets (which I didn't photograph) because they apparently really like it when the lawn gets long and out of control, so I would mow and crickets would be hopping out of the way of the mower. I saw at least three different species, and probably at least 30 total crickets. I saw several species of katydids, too. And two species of frogs. (And, to my great revulsion, about a billion earthworms). I think I annoyed a LOT of critters by mowing the lawn today. Sorry, critters. I leave most of my backyard for you, but I think I am entitled at least to my paths. 

Anyway... it was an exhausting afternoon, but in a good way.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

This is either a yellow-collared scape moth or a Virginia ctenucha moth. I used to think I knew the difference, but apparently I don't. It would be easier if I could see the body of it, but even when I saw it in flight I didn't get a good look. There is a tiny peek of it here, and I can see it is blue, so I think this is a Virginia ctenucha. Adding to the confusion is that both are active in the daytime. 

Check out that proboscis, sucking nectar. The entire time I was outside today this moth was on the autumn joy sedum flowers, feeding.

As were many, many other insects, mostly bumblebees:

A lot of people don't know that there are a lot of flies that are pollinators, but they don't just come around to annoy you at picnics. They are important in the ecosystem.

Did I mention there were a lot of bees?

There were a couple different species of bumblebee–you can see they are quite different sizes.

 

The autumn joy sedum had a lot of insect orders today: Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths... I really wish I had seen a butterfly...), Diptera (flies), and Hemiptera, as you can see here...

I think this is an assassin bug, but it was poking its feeding tube into the flowers like it was looking for nectar. Usually Hemiptera are stabbing feeders, whether they are preying on other insects of stabbing that mouthpart into a plant stem or leaf to suck out fluids. But just because I don't know about it doesn't mean that they can't just sip nectar like other nectar feeders.

As for the fly it shared a plant with...

A tachinid fly

Wasp. Possibly a potters wasp.

The goldenrod was not as crowded as the autumn joy sedum, but it was pretty popular:

I think this is a paper wasp. Meaning that it makes a paper nest. Not that it is made out of paper itself. It makes the paper by chewing up wood pulp, the same way people make paper, except that people don't do the chewing in their mouths.

Another wasp

That looks like a wasp, but it's a thick-headed fly, which lays its eggs on bees to parasitize them. Note also the ant, and can you spot the moth? (It's out of focus).

 Wasps and a sweat bee

Here is the insect that I spotted when I went to the shed to get the lawnmower:

Green lacewing larva, crawling around on a tree trunk. As you can see, the larva is not green. You may recall that yesterday's entire post was pictures of a green lacewing; this is an illustration of the fact that in insects that undergo complete metamorphosis the larva usually doesn't look anything at all like the adult. Not that you can see this larva very well, since it has piled a lot of fluff on its back as camouflage, so that it can prey on things without being recognized for what it is. But aside from the color, the adult green lacewing does not have those pinchers on its face. This one seemed like it was eating lichen, and I don't know if that is another food source for them, or if it was just looking for prey in the lichen. Also, I should note that I have no idea if this is the same species of green lacewing as the one from last night.

Sweat bee

Net-winged beetle

Tiny leafhopper, sitting on the garden fence.

I ruminate a lot as I mow the lawn, and at one point, as I was mowing around some milkweed I was feeling rather bitter about things, and I began to feel bitter about the milkweed that I was trying not to mow down, because what was the point of it? All that milkweed in my backyard to provide food for monarch caterpillars, and where were the caterpillars–or butterflies–to show for it? All summer I saw monarchs laying eggs, tiny caterpillars hatching, and then disappearing. So why was I bothering to mow around it? I was tempted to just mow it all down.

Then, in another part of the backyard where milkweed it growing:

I spotted one while I was mowing. It wasn't until I had gone and gotten my camera that I realized there were two of them on the same leaf. It can be amusing when two monarch caterpillars share a leaf; they don't really like to share.

These both look like they are pretty close to being ready to pupate.

And speaking of pupating Lepidoptera:

An ailanthus webworm (I posted a picture of it last week) that has become a chrysalis inside its web.

When I was mowing near the hazelnut tree I checked to see if the nuts were ready to be harvested. You do this by shaking the branches; any nuts that are ready will fall off. Fortunately for me, I noticed that some of the branches had other things on them before I shook them, things I would not want to shake off onto my head:

Sawfly larvae. I have noticed that this year the hazelnut tree, which usually has all kinds of insects on it, has been pretty devoid of insects, so I was sort of glad to see these, except that they can do a lot of damage to a small tree, which the hazelnut is (I really need to stop with all these horrible, run-on sentences). So while I was glad to see insects on the tree, I wasn't especially glad that it was these insects. This is not the only leaf they were inhabiting/ingesting. Anyway, one day I discovered, in a very unpleasant way, that if you jostle a tree with sawfly larvae on the leaves they will sometimes all let go, or rather, fling themselves off. So if you happen to be standing right under them when they do this... anyway, I avoided shaking their branches.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Harvestman nestled in a hydrangea flower