Dance Party

 I feel like I need to do a follow-up to yesterday, so hey, I'm blogging two nights in a row! Just like old times!

I did another bug walk/woods walk today, meaning that I took my camera when I went on my woods walk, but this time we left on our walk earlier than we did yesterday, so it was still light out by the time we got back. And once again I went back out again later, after dark, so there is a mix here of pictures taken in late afternoon/early evening and night. For quite a while all of our walks were after dark because we were waiting for the temperature to go down enough for it to be comfortable, but today was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we headed for the woods in the golden sunshine of late afternoon.

Considering the lower number of bugs to be seen in general this summer (which I think is due to drought), I saw quite a few. Especially if you consider the fact that I wasn't able to choose a Backyard Bug of the Day, and ended up with three.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

Female Pelecinid wasp. I saw these several times last week, when I didn't have a camera with me (and wasn't fast enough to get pictures with my phone). I was surprised that they were all very different sizes, including one that had a main body that was only about an inch long (with a proportionate ovipositor). I don't know if they simply vary a lot in size (but this was BIG variations) or if there are different species found here. None of them were as big as the ones I saw last summer. I actually saw two today, one of which was carrying something, but I only got a picture of this one, and I wasn't able to get close–it landed in a tree at least a foot over my head. The tiny one last week landed on my leg, and then my shoe, but as I said, I wasn't fast enough getting my phone out. Anyway, these are cool, especially once you find out that the thing that looks like a long, intimidating stinger is just an ovipositor and they can't hurt you.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Remember the beech woolly aphids I posted yesterday? Here's one I found wandering by itself on a tree trunk. I assume there were more on a branch above, but this tree is tall and the branches are high up. I think yesterday I forgot to post details about them. As you saw in yesterday's pictures, there are masses of them that congregate on branches, specifically on beech trees. They suck fluid from the tree, and their waste product is basically sugar water called honeydew. They are not invasive, but in large numbers can damage a tree, though I don't think they kill them. Anyway, they are considered a pest, not just because they suck the fluid from trees, but because all of that honeydew lands on the ground and surrounding leaves, and a black fungus grows on it. In fact, this year I found several groups of them by spotting the black fungus on the ground (which basically just looks like a black film on the leaf litter). I have noticed a lot of young beech trees whose leaves are totally brown and dried up, but I don't know if that is from these aphids, the drought, or a combination of both. Anyway, they have two other names, beech blight aphids, because they are considered pests, and boogie woogie aphids. That second name is quite fitting, because when they feel threatened they all start waving their back ends, which as you can see from the picture, are covered in this fluff, which is actually a waxy secretion in the form of fine threads. When you see hundreds of these together waving their fluffy butts around, it looks like they are at a rave, all dancing together. I have been calling them dancing aphids. Anyway, the other thing they do for defense is excrete honeydew, and if you happen to be standing under a branch full of these and frighten them, then you get a shower of honeydew (as happened to me yesterday). I have also heard that they can bite, which technically is not biting, but stabbing with their stylet, the pointy mouthpart they use to both stab into branches and suck out the tree's fluids. 

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

Tree cricket. I can hear them all night, but so far I haven't seen any this year (I don't think) until today. Well, tonight, really. I found them on my second walk, after dark.

Now, for the other bugs of today:

I ate my lunch in the arbor again today, and so did this Pandorus Sphinx moth caterpillar. I ate fried chicken, the caterpillar ate Virginia creeper leaves. Although, unlike yesterday, it wasn't eating when I saw it today, it was just hanging around upside down.

According to Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner, in the instars before the final instar this has a horn, like a lot of sphinx moth caterpillars, but in its final instar the horn is replaced by a "button." It just looks like another cartoon eye to me.

Looks like a wasp, but it's a thick-headed fly. Parasitoids on bumblebees, they hang out around goldenrod a lot, feeding on the nectar and looking for bumblebees to lay their eggs in.

Tiny looper caterpillar

This tortoise beetle is on the exact same leaf where I found it last week.

After dark the goldenrod is visited by moths. I don't know the name of this one, but I have always admired its Art Deco stylings.

My second, after dark walk tonight was once again an attempt to photograph a spider. I had more success this time. Arachnid Appreication: 

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This is not the spider I was looking for, but I was happy to find it. Nursery web spider.

There are a lot of webs across paths, which is particularly annoying in the afternoon because they tend to be hard to see. This web, however, was well above the path, and caught the sunlight nicely, so we could see it. You can't tell in this shot, but there is another in the background, also high above the path, and so safe from us walking through it. I am not sure what kind of spider this is, but it could be a spined micrathena or a white micrathena.

And here is the spider I went out hoping to spot:

Marbled orb weaver. You can see that it caught a bee today.

I got a few shots before it scurried back into its leaf bower. I am still not satisfied, but I said this was my last attempt at photographing it, so there you go.

When I got back to the house I found this in the flowerbed next to the house. this looks like a nursery web spider, but the coloring on the legs is weird. It almost looks like it has some kind of fungal disease.