Good or Bad?

I took 637 pictures in my backyard today. Two of them were of my husband, so not for this blog. Of the remaining 635, almost 400 of them were of today's Backyard Bug of the Day. Why did I take so many pictures of the same bug? Because it was a cool bug, and I wanted it to be Backyard Bug of the Day, and for that I needed a good picture. I talk about good or bad pictures here mostly if I think a picture isn't good but it's the best I have to show you a particular bug. I know as an artist I shouldn't apologize for my work, but I can't help it–I don't want to post a bad picture and have people think that I don't know it's bad. But I want to share the bugs with you, so sometimes I'll post something below my standards. So what are my standards for a good picture? First of all, it has to be in focus. Using a macro lens I don't get a lot of depth of field, so I have to make choices about what will be in focus. Most important is usually the eyes; if the rest of the bug is in focus and the eyes are not, unless it's an extreme situation where the head is really bent away from the camera, that won't be a good picture. But it is also important to get the important features in focus. The important features are whatever it is that makes that cool bug look cool. It might be the wings, it might be the body shape, it's different for different species, but whatever it is that is the main point of interest has to be in focus. That's what's necessary for me to consider a picture basically good. Almost as important (and only almost because I can sometimes fix this on the computer) is that it be lit well. Other key factors are a good background, a nice composition, some drama if I can get it... Every once in a while–and I mean less than once a month–I will look at a picture and say, "Wow!" Those are the great pictures, the best. Mostly I settle for pictures that are between okay and good. Today I didn't get any wows. I don't think I even got any good pictures. I got a few okay pictures–not a lot for the number of shots I took. But I am going to post a bunch of them so you can at least get a look at the interesting features of today's Backyard Bug of the Day, even if you don't get a sense of all of them in the same picture.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 I did try to look up what kind of wasp this is, which is a whole different reason for annoyance: I looked in three different insect field guides, and couldn't find it in any of them. And this isn't a case where there are a lot of insects that sort of look the same. This wasp has distinctive markings. It just wasn't in any of the books. This happens to me a lot, and it can't possibly be that every bug in my backyard is amazingly rare. Why can't I ever find them in the books?

 One reason I loved this bug: blue wings. I am a sucker for any blue insect.

 I also love the false eye spots on the back. I am not sure why a wasp needs false eye spots, which I think are usually to deter predators, but there they are. Of course, not all wasps can sting, so maybe it does need protection from predators. I don't know, because I don't know what kind of wasp this is.

 Another factor that makes a picture good: not having my hand in the picture. Which, by the way, is also a good illustration for all those people who think that all wasps are evil and just go out of their way to sting people. This one actually crawled on my fingers a few times, I had my hand near it for most of the 400 shots I took, I was totally in its face with the camera, and I did not get stung.

 Bee photobomber

Other Bugs:

 I didn't even have to go outside to find my first bug today–it landed on my newspaper.

 The dragonflies remain uncooperative.

 Crane fly eyes

 Plant hopper

Caterpillars are everywhere lately...

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar

 

 Red banded hairstreak, I think.

 Some kind of plant bug

 Tiny moth–for a sense of scale, compare it to the goldenrod flowers.

 Sharpshooters

 I've been trying to get a picture showing how popular the goldenrod is these days. Here you have two bumblebees, a wasp, and two flies...

 ... and here you have all of the above, plus a gnat.

 Geometer caterpillars like it, too.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I saw this insect sitting on the goldenrod, and when I leaned in for a closer look, trying to see if it was an ant or something else, I realized it was dead. But then it moved, and I wondered how that was possible...

 ... and then I saw how.

 I guess that little beetle is safe from the spider for now.

 

 

 A struggle was in progress when I found this– the wasp is stuck in the web by her ovipositor.

In the Pink

Because I started writing this blog knowing very little about bugs, and though I have learned a lot since then, still very little about bugs compared to the vast amount there is to know, I am frequently wrong when I say things here. I am wrong about insect identifications, I am wrong about random bits of information about bugs, I am wrong about... well, just a whole lot of things. Sometimes I have just made wrong assumptions, but a lot of times I have read things (mostly on the internet) that I have misunderstood or were just wrong to begin with. Of course, wrongness can be relative. For instance, I am pretty sure that more than once I have said that there are not many bugs that are pink, that it's an unusual color for insects. In fact, I am fairly certain I have already said that at least once, if not more than once, this year. But I am noticing that there are actually quite a few insects that are pink–I have found several pink caterpillars this year.

And two of today's Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day are pink.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Two-spotted tree cricket

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 I don't know what this is, but I think it is something new for me, which is why it is a Backyard Bug of the Day. In spite of how the picture may look, this is not the other pink bug, it's really brown, but sometimes taking pictures in the shade with the light from the camera makes the colors look off.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day:

 This is the other pink bug, a leaf hopper that is also a new species for me. It was on the front porch, attracted by the light.

This is the time of year when the rock garden is full of grasshoppers. It's fun to walk by there and see them hopping around like popcorn popping.

 A couple on a rock

 Another one on another rock

 I think this is a tree louse.

 There were wasps all over the flowers in the backyard today, but this was the only one I managed a picture of.

 Katydid

 I took this picture as another bug-spotting test, which I apparently failed. I took it thinking that there are three leaf hoppers in the picture...

 ... and when I looked at the shots on the computer, I realized there are four.

 There were a couple more further down the vine.

 Caterpillars

 You can't really tell in the pictures, but this tiny insect has a slightly pink hue to its wings.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This net-winged beetle was struggling to get out of the spider's web. The spider was occupied with another prey. In case you're wondering why I didn't help it, it's because I believe in non-interference in these matters, and why should I choose the beetle's side, and not the spider's? And it is possible that the beetle has already been bitten and envenomated, which means it would die anyway, and I would be robbing the spider of its meal for nothing.

 Do you know what kind of spider this is?

 Here's a hint... It has six spots, and an orb web...

 Yes, that's right, it's a six-spotted orb weaver!

 This was a fun spider. I found it on the car–well, there were several. When they feel threatened, they flatten themselves out to look invisible (which clearly doesn't work).

 But then one of them did this. I don't know what this behavior is all about–trying to get some height to get a good look around, perhaps?