The enemy of my enemy is my friend, they say. Well, that means today's Backyard Bug of the Day is my friend, and yours too.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
Elephant mosquito. Named for their size, not because they feed on elephants, because they don't. Elephant mosquitos do not feed on blood at all, either male or female. Note its feeding tube sucking up the nectar of the goldenrod flowers. But their larvae do eat the larvae of other mosquito species, including ones that do bite. So they should be loved, not hated. They are also quite pretty; although I wasn't able to get an angle that showed the pretty colors very well I think you can see hints of blue.
And right now there is a mosquito buzzing around my living room, and I can't seem to kill it.
I posted about some huge fungi in my backyard last week, so here's an update: They are even huger now:
This is a giant puffball mushroom. It is NOT the biggest one. I have heard they are edible, but I am not going to be eating any mushrooms out of my backyard. This is significantly bigger than it was last week.
I think this is a fungus, too. I have seen these in the woods occasionally over the summer.
And of course, frogs:
Last year for most of the summer and fall the stream was dry, so we didn't see frogs. I am enjoying seeing them this year.
Today the bees were not interested in the autumn joy sedum; the goldenrod was the flower of the hour:
If you look closely you can see a sweat bee in flight.
Yeah, these seem pretty gregarious.
Arachnid Appreciation:
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The orb weaver on my living room window. I think you can just see the web. It is very close to the window, so I wonder how effective it is going to be. The black shape is a falcon decal that is supposed to keep birds from flying into the window.
I found a couple of nursery web spiders in the bed with the autumn joy sedum. I don't know why, but I find them there every year:
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