Preparing For Winter

Ah, autumn! The leaves are vibrant and varied, there's a chill in the air, and chipmunks run around stuffing their faces:

 Literally.

 

 Hm. I've never really noticed what chipmunk tails look like.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 A female ichneumon wasp making a bold fashion statement by wearing stripes with polka dots.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 When I first spotted this tucked away in a gap in some tree bark I thought it was an anchor bug, but when I looked closer I realized it is a beetle, and one I have never seen before. I could not find it in my book, unfortunately.

 When I can I prefer to take pictures without a flash or the light on my camera, but it was an overcast day, and this was in a dark spot, and I thought perhaps with light on it it would be iridescent, and so I turned on the light, and yes, it is.

 I really wanted to poke this thing with a stick to get it out of its hole, but I knew that was not nice, and it would probably have backfired anyway; the beetle would have dropped to the ground and hidden or flown away. So, I had to be satisfied with this incomplete view.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

 Some weird fly I have never seen before.

Something is eating the chrysanthemums before they even get a chance to bloom:

I hope it leaves something for the pollinators, for when the asters are done:

It's hard to tell, but there are two bumblebees there.

 

 Thread-waisted wasp. At around 60ºF these get very lethargic, and much easier to photograph.

Other Bugs:

There were a lot of crickets in the rock garden today:

 

 

 Another cricket, on a tree

 Leaf hopper

Last year around this time there was a rock in my backyard that for several days had multitudes of tiny rove beetles crawling all over it. Today I found a similar situation on a brick in the old vegetable garden:

 

 

 I went over and looked at the rock where they were last year, and found one there.

 Leaf-footed bug

 Stinkbug

This was Backyard Bug of the Day about a week ago, and that was the first time I ever saw one:

 Today it was back on the same plant.

 Fall webworm

 Milkweed bugs

 Starting tomorrow this blog will be on hiatus for a little over a week for technical reasons.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 The marbled orb weaver is still hiding away in its bower, and has not built a web in several days.

Jumping spider:

Oh Deer

Backyard Mammal of the Day:

 I took this photo with my zoom lens with the 2X extender. I was not so close. I did end up scaring the deer off, though, and after it bounded away onto a path where I could not see it I could still hear it. I used to think that deer were silent; I didn't think they were able to make sounds other than rustling against plants, but a few years ago I found out they can communicate by snorting, and that is what I heard on the far side of the thicket after I startled this dear into fleeing.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I think this is a question mark butterfly.

Other Bugs:

 I haven't been seeing lady beetles much this autumn, but today I saw two.

 

 Sweat bee

Leaf-footed bug

For a couple of days I thought the "small" brown hooded owlet moth caterpillar had moved on, because I could not find it, but today it was back in its old spot.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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There is a plant in my old vegetable garden whose flowers have gone to seed, leaving behind the spindly, bare plant, and today it was covered in spider webs:

 There were three (I think) of these orb weavers, so tiny I can't tell what they are.

 There was one web with this bowl-and-doily spider, and several other webs of that style that did not seem to have spiders on them. This is another thing that I have not seen much of lately. Most years they are all over the backyard. Not this year.

Coming Blooms

The temperature is dropping... We had a threat of frost last week that did not come to pass, and tonight that is in the forecast again. That will be the end for some insects, but by no means all. It remains to be seen if the freeze actually happens.

There are more flowers coming, though:

 

Mums are a nice late-blooming flower for pollinators. Last year I planted some perennial mums, and they bloomed–and attracted pollinators–into November, as I recall, even though we had had frost before then. The mosquitoes will be killed off by the frost, but there will still be bugs around to feed on this flower when it opens.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 Field cricket. Quite a large cricket.

There was one on the foundation of the house, too, in the rock garden:

Other Bugs:

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar

Grasshopper

The asters were nearly deserted today:

 One lethargic bumblebee...

 

 ... and one lethargic potters wasp

 Leaf hopper. Notice that the leaves are no longer green.

 Wasp

I always love it when I can get more than one insect in a shot, particularly if there's more than one species:

 

 Two kinds of flies, wasps (same kinds of wasps, I think), and ants

 Feeding on wild grapes

 Winter firefly

 Milkweed bugs feeding on milkweed seeds

A couple of looper caterpillars:

 Robber fly eating another fly

Arachnid Appreciation:
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The marbled orb weaver hasn't built a web in a few days (it was washed out by the heavy rains on Wednesday night), and today it was tucked up in its bower, which it has closed up a bit more.

I watched this jumping spider crawl around on this plant for a while (and attempt to crawl across a silk thread onto my camera), but it never did notice the leaf hopper there that it could have captured.

This tiny jumping spider has caught something.