Another Beautiful Day

I've been kind of complainy about the lack of rain for the last couple of months, but this really has been a phenomenally beautiful summer. Very few hot, humid patches, and so, so, so many glorious days. Granted, the nights are chilly, and I am a little worried about how soon winter is going to come when we never really warmed up for a normal summer, but I love temperatures in the 70's, and that is what we have had a lot of. I think we only had one, maybe two, heat waves (which around here is 3 or more days of temperatures about 90ºF). It's been beautiful.

I don't know how the bugs feel about it. I know that the weather (along with the length of the days) has some effects on their behavior - the rising temperatures in the spring tell some bugs that pupated over the winter when it is time to emerge. I presume that cooling temperatures in the fall tell them things, too. So I wonder how all of these mild days and cold nights are affecting them. Three summers of observing things in my backyard have not been enough to let me know this kind of thing.

Such a pity I can't just ask them.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Speaking of cold weather, this is, for reasons unknown to me, called a snowy tree cricket. I get the cricket part, and I guess I can understand the tree part, even though in all the times I have seen one, it has never been on a tree. But I don't understand the snowy part.

I think it actually looks a lot like a dragon.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

This suddenly appeared out of nowhere today. I have no idea what it is. I thought at first it was the same plant as those pink flowers that have been blooming this summer, but obviously, the buds are not pink, so... no idea. But they are lovely buds.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

A newly fledged robin. We knew there was a nest in the top of the arbor, but until I heard some rustling up there a couple of days ago I thought it was an inactive nest. I spotted this baby sitting on the arbor this afternoon. Later on I was looking for bugs nearby, but not in the arbor, and a bird shot out of the brush (startling me, natch). I think it might have been a young robin. I checked the arbor, and the bird wasn't there anymore, so maybe.

The pokeweed has been pretty much a huge fail this year:

There used to be so much of it in the backyard, but this year there were only a couple of small plants. And the deer have chomped off almost all of the berries before they even ripened. Not that I was going to eat the berries, because they are poisonous, but it just seems to show a lack of patience on the part of the deer.

Speaking of chomping, I found out who ate up those leaves from yesterday:

Well, they are welcome to them. This is my one garden bed where I plant things for real, and most of what is growing there is not the things that I planted. Anyway, I pretty much let the bugs eat what they want, as long as they leave the vegetable garden alone.

Moth in the wild:

There are a LOT of bees in the yard lately.

 The ever-popular cone flowers.

 There is currently a fish tank on the back porch, drying off after being washed out with the hose. This bee was inside it, so I got this great view of the underside of the bee. I love insects that land on glass.

There is also a tree trunk leaning against the back porch (don't ask), and the carpenter bees have made it a home.

I checked in on the milkweed beetle larvae, and only found one, with something stuck to its back.

Ambush bugs:

I don't know if color differences are a form of sexual dimorphism in ambush bugs, but it certainly seems that way. I don't think I have ever seen one as dark as that male. I love their turtle-ish faces.

Random caterpillar:

Even when they are in plain sight, katydids seem to be playing hide and seek.

Now for some Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I know this is hard to see, but it's also hard to photograph! Another orb weaver hiding in its leaf tent in the daytime, but this one appears to have something to eat in there.

 Daddy-long-legs like to play hide and seek, too.

Crab spider


Now, I think I am going to go outside and see what the spiders are up to tonight...