If You're Going To Be Clumsy, You Have To Be Resilient

 I had a bad day today.

I wrecked my camera, and it was totally my fault, completely due to my own stupidity and carelessness. I am upset with myself. It's not fixable. And they don't even make this camera anymore. I did this while I was walking in the woods today, and I hadn't taken many pictures yet. In the moment, I figured that was it for my photography for the day, and for the foreseeable future.

But. I don't admit defeat easily. Sure, my first reaction to whatever goes wrong is despair, but then I find a way to work around the problem. So I experimented with the camera, and found out that it sort of still works. It doesn't work well, but it does still take pictures. My one true gift in life is working around technology when it won't do what I want, so I found a way to continue my bug walk (well, I had to continue the walk anyway, because I was about half a mile away from my house), and all three of today's Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day were photographed after I irreparably destroyed my camera. 

My first Backyard Co-Bug of the Day is courtesy of an act of compassion on my part.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1: 

What's this, you ask? A caterpillar thrashing around in the stream. Once I figured out what it was, knowing that caterpillars can't swim, and that if it sank it would drown, I got a stick to lift it out. As it turns out, it was still attached to a silk thread from a branch above, so I ended up catching the thread on the stick and lifting it to dry land.

It was not demonstrative in its gratitude for the rescue.

There was a very relatable moment, however, when it was inching along and its back end landed on this bit of twig, which then rolled down the rock, and since the caterpillar had grabbed on with its back end it went rolling down with it. Many times have I stepped on a stick and nearly rolled my ankle in the woods. It's never been as dramatic for me as it was for the caterpillar, simply because of scale.

It got up and walked off, probably hoping no one saw that.

I am pretty sure this is a new species for me.

It appears to be some kind of geometer moth caterpillar, given the inchworm movement. But you know I am too lazy to look this up. Most geometer moths are pretty boring looking.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Dragonfly

Dragonflies were more than usually cooperative today:

And damselflies had their moments:

 

There were several of these flitting about above the small pond, and mostly landing on these grass stems in the center, so I could not get close to them.

One finally came a little closer.

Later I saw an ebony jewelwing:

It was not cooperative.

I think this is the third time I have ever seen an ebony jewelwing on my property. They are magnificent, and this one would definitely be BBotD if I had been able to get a better shot of it.

Anyway...

The last Backyard Co-Bug of the Day for today was not one I saw on my walk, but one I saw when I went out later to do more trail work. I had just stepped into the woods when I saw it, and ran back to the house (about twenty feet, which is a good thing, because I hate running) to get my camera. It hadn't stayed still, but I was able to find it again.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

Eyed click beetle

I'll bet you can guess where it got that name from.

It's a pretty large species of click beetle. This is the third time I have seen one in my backyard, and the first time that it didn't fly in out of nowhere and land on someone's shirt.

 

Other Bugs:

Not quite as cooperative as the one I saw yesterday, but...

I think this is a little wood satyr butterfly. Yesterday it posed for me with its wings up, and today with them flat. It was flying laps around part of the backyard, and on some of the laps it paused here for me to take pictures. It just didn't land close enough for a nice close-up!

I can't tell if this is a beetle or some kind of Hemiptera:

 

These moths are all over the place, and they rise up like reverse confetti when I walk by:

Usually they then land in the leaf litter, where, as you can imagine, they blend in really well. This one landed on a rock.

 

 Tiny flowers attract tiny bugs. I think this is some kind of borer beetle.

There are a bunch of moth species that are similar in looks and behavior, and the behavior is to never let me get close enough for a good picture. This is one of them.

A fly that has succumbed to a fungus, which reminds me of the book I am currently reading, Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey. I am rereading it in preparation for reading the sequel, Red Side Story. Anyway, in the book people die of a disease called The Mildew, and I read the book before I ever knew that this happens to insects and spiders, so now whenever I see one that has died from fungus, I think of The Mildew. I wonder if Jasper Fforde knows about this aspect of the wild world...

 

Firefly

Robber fly mating pair. I think the large one on the right is the female.

There was some weirdness in the small pond today, something that was not there yesterday:

The water was covered with these... things. They are tiny, and at first I thought they were eggs of some kind–in fact, I was worried that they might be mosquito eggs (they're not–I looked it up when I got home), but they were moving, kind of twitching, and when I looked at them on my computer I could see that they are insects, or at least insect larvae. But I have no idea what they are. They are not mosquito larvae, although there are still plenty of those in the small pond.

You can see they have tiny antennae.

There were masses of them.

I don't know why mama robin is on the nest instead of off finding food for the baby bird, but she was sitting there every time I peeked today.

I don't know how the next few days are going to play out, photography wise. I guess we'll see what I can do.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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This spider really didn't want its picture taken:

Every time I turned the vine around, it scurried back to the other side.

I did finally get one shot. It is missing one of its front legs.

This was an interesting scenario. Those are two different species of spiders, I think. Can you see the tiny one in the big, messy web? I don't know what the other one was up to...

A Couple of Days of Bugs

 We did a lot of trail work over the weekend, and last night my arms were so tired I couldn't bear to do anything, so I didn't bother to blog. I didn't have much to blog about, because I spent the afternoon in the woods with a weed whacker instead of my camera, but when I was done working I did go back into the woods with my camera to take a specific picture:

Remember last week (I think) when I posted pictures of some tiny eggs on a leaf? Well, the eggs have hatched. Here are the tiny, adorable, baby stinkbugs that hatched out of those pretty, little eggs. You can see the eggs there, too.

Every time I walk out my back door I see at least one pearl crescent butterfly. There are all over my backyard lately, but they have not been interested in being photographed, to my intense frustration. Then yesterday, when I was out with my camera to take pictures of the above baby stinkbugs, one finally landed and let me take at least a couple of okay shots, so it gets to be Backyard Bug of the Day for yesterday (May 26, 2024):

I took the long way back on that trip to see the baby stinkbugs, and saw a couple more things to photograph:

Caterpillar on fern

Either a comma or a question mark butterfly. I didn't get any closer than this.

I actually saw a lot of cool bugs while I was out working–dragonflies, a hummingbird moth that fluttered around my feet, a six-spotted tiger beetle, and lots of other insects, but naturally I didn't see any of those when I got my camera. That kind of luck extended into today–the forecast for today was pretty dire, but we decided to go for a walk anyway (after the wind had died down). I didn't bring my camera because I didn't want to have it out with me if it started pouring. And naturally I saw lots of cool bugs. Even more annoying, there were butterflies that basically posed perfectly for me, and all I had was my cellphone in my pocket. One butterfly posed and then a hummingbird moth swooped in and flew around it–that would have made for an amazing picture! But I didn't get it. However, I saw an amazing bug that was new to me, and it was so cool that when I got back to the house I got my camera and went out to get pictures of it. In some situations you can walk half a mile to get a camera and have a chance the bug will still be there, and it was sort of the case...

Anyway, here's the setting:

Rotting log with huge mushrooms growing inside. Bugs love rotting logs and fungus, so a perfect place to find bugs! And there were a lot of bugs in there, but they were quite camera shy. And yet, as we walked by I spotted a couple of them on the log, and I took a couple of pictures with my phone before I went and got my camera.

Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day #1:

Some kind of rove beetle. I have never seen one this color before. I have often seen rove beetles on fungus, so it makes sense to find one here. Unfortunately for me, though when I first spotted them these were on the top of the log, when I came back with my camera they were inside, hiding in the leaf litter under the mushroom. They made brief appearances, and I tried to get a decent picture. I didn't, really, but I am making this a BBotD anyway, because it's so cool, and a new species for me.

Rove beetle are just generally cool. They have their wings folded up inside those very short elytra, and though I didn't see them do it today, when they put their wings away after flying they lift up their back end (as you can see here, very flexible), and tuck them under. 

The color looked either green or blue, depending on the angle of the light.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

While I was waiting for BBotD #1 to come out from the leaf litter, a rove beetle of another species flew in and landed on the mushroom. I only got a quick couple of shots before it scurried over the edge to the underside of the mushroom, and then I didn't see it again.

As I said, there were lots of bugs in this log:

Even yet another species of rove beetle!

Other Bugs:

A swallowtail that landed in front of me when I only had my phone camera with me

 I've been seeing a lot of swallowtails lately. I may see a pearl crescent every time I walk out the back door, but I would say I see some kind of swallowtail about every-other time. I've been seeing them in the woods a lot, too. But usually they are flying high, and don't land anywhere I can take a picture. I saw several today, including one that zoomed right in front of my face as I was walking up the back porch steps after my walk.

There's a lot of maple leaf viburnum in bloom in the woods:

Okay, this one isn't blooming yet, the buds haven't opened. But a lot of it is blooming, and I love it because it's so pretty, and it's a native plant. It attracts a lot of buds, and on my first walk in the woods today I saw beetles one almost every plant, in some cases lots of beetles. There weren't so many when I went back, and by then the wind had picked up, making it practically impossible to take pictures of the beetles (I tried. None of those shots are worth showing you). 

But I did get one decent shot of one of the flower longhorn beetles:

One a leaf, though, not on the flowers.

Long-legged fly

Soldier beetle on raspberry blossom

Stinkbug on tulip tree bud:

Ah, I forgot about this one. Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

I almost didn't try to take a picture of this beetle at all because I generally don't have much luck photographing these, and I'm at a point in my bug photography that I often don't bother with things that are frustrating (although I still do undertake a lot of frustrating attempts), but I figured I might as well give it a try. And then it was the most cooperative bug I have encountered in ages!

I still, after years of doing this, don't know what kind of beetle this is. But it's gorgeous.

 

I accidentally exposed this nest Saturday when I was using my hedge trimmer. I stopped cutting this thicket after I saw it–and this is why I don't usually trim anything this time of year–and looked inside the nest, and thought it was empty. It's not unusual for birds to build multiple nests and not use some of them, and this time of year it would also be reasonable for the birds to be done with it, their brood having already fledged. I haven't been attacked by birds, or even been warned off by them when walking by here, so this definitely seemed like an unused nest. But yesterday when I went by I saw a robin on the nest. She flew away immediately, and I took the chance of peeking inside:

One tiny, baby bird. No other eggs. I feel really bad about accidentally exposing the nest. It's not terribly exposed, but still. Anyway, I hope this baby makes it–the mother was on the nest again today, so she's still taking care of it.

I could see her on the nest, but I am going to give this path a wide berth for the next couple of weeks.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I came across this spider building her web yesterday:

 

From today's brief walk with my camera:

Spider on interesting fungus.