The Bugs in the Backyard: Golden

Yikes, I procrastinated a bit long for the number of pictures I need to upload today...

Today was one of those days when at the beginning of my bug walk I thought I wasn't going to find any bugs at all, and then ended up taking about 350 pictures. [Kindly disregard the questionable grammar of that sentence.] There really are a lot of bugs out there. And by the sound of things this evening, a lot of tree frogs, too. It's cacophonous, but in a good way.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I know the blog has been a bit weevil-centric lately (and if you like it, then I guess the blog is good and weevil), but this is a really cool looking weevil!

I actually thought it was a spider at first. No, that's not true, and first I had no idea what it was, and then I thought it was a spider. Until I looked through the macro lens and saw it was a weevil.

What I am not sure about is whether or not it was alive. I was never able to determine that.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

To be honest, I really don't know if this has been Bud of the Day before. There are a lot of flowers that look sort of like this. But I think it's new, and it's pretty, so here it is.

Speaking of tree frogs, I've been seeing toads the last couple of days. As in spotting them in the yard, I am not hallucinating. I saw one yesterday, and two today; small ones, and I have just caught glimpses as they hopped off the paths I am walking into the underbrush. They are very shy.

These are the best pictures I got of the two today. They appear to be the same species, and I assume they are young, because usually when I see this species of toad they are bigger. I am just happy to be seeing them this year, because there were so few around last summer. They probably don't care much for the dry weather, though.

Remember Daily Dandelion?

This is the first one I have seen in probably months. Very random. And yet, I have had them blooming in my yard as late as December in past years.

I saw a few butterflies today. I actually got pictures of two of them:

Pearl crescent. A rare good shot at the ventral side of the wing.

Everybody loves goldenrod in the backyard, as you will notice...

Except this skipper.

A couple of moths in the wild:

Speaking of Lepidoptera...

I think this is a cocoon, though I am not sure if it's a moth or butterfly that is going to emerge. I have just read about larvae using bits of organic matter to make cocoons.

And while we're on the subject of silk:

I don't think I have ever seen a spider web with this kind of pattern/structure. I couldn't spot the spider that made it. The picture doesn't do it justice - it was really pretty.

Now, just a bunch of bugs:

katydid. Sometimes the bugs are watching me, too.

It doesn't appear to have wings yet.

Want to have some fun? Toggle back and forth between these next two pictures and it looks like the katydid is waggling its antennae at you. It was waggling its antennae at me.

More insect comedy:

So, you're a caterpillar, but you are pretending to be a twig, so you stay very, very still, and hope no one notices that you are a caterpillar and not a twig.

And they don't, which means they crawl on you, and you have to keep still, or they will know that you are a caterpillar, and not a twig. Do you see the tiny mite crawling on the caterpillar?

Yeah, it's awkward.

Okay, back to the goldenrod:

Very, very popular with bees right now (and an ambush bug).

Usually ambush bugs just sit still, but this one was more active. It even moved around to different flower clumps - and I saw it fly once, from one flower clump to the next. This is the first time I have ever seen an ambush bug fly (even if it was just about two inches). It was kind of funny, actually, given all of the crawling involved in its previous switches of position. I have frequently wondered why bugs walk when they can fly... Also, can you see the other predator in this picture?

This ambush bug was proactive, and went out looking for bees to catch.

It didn't catch any, though.

It didn't seem interested in the little beetles all over the goldenrod, either.

I think this is a honeybee. I don't see a lot of those.

Good news! The carpenter bee is alive! And a little bit grumpy! Okay, that last bit was not good news. It complicated the photography. But it didn't sting me, so no worries.

Random assassin bug, just to show the scary proboscis:

It was tiny though, just a young'un. All the same, I keep my fingers away from assassin bugs (yes, that is my finger in the background, but it's not that close to the bug).

The backyard was teeming with spiders today, so there are a lot of arachnids to appreciate for Arachnid Appreciation:
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The most noteworthy thing about this spider today is the location of its web - about three inches from one of the huge orb weaver webs, blocking the way to the orb weaver web from that direction (though it's not nearly as big. Two of the orb weavers are now building webs that are close to two feet wide these days).

I don't often get a side view (or back view) of these spiders, because they hang upside down on their webs, but this web was in a tree, at about eye level.

Zoomed in so you can really see how awesome this tiny spider looks - I couldn't get close enough to get a close-up shot because it was on a branch over my head.