Powers of Observation

Maybe it was the humidity, but I just was not inspired when I went for my bug walk today. I found bugs, and I even found a really nice one to be Backyard Bug of the Day, but it is a bug I have seen a few times before, and got better pictures of than I did today, so mostly when I was done taking pictures of it I was just annoyed that a) it wouldn't stop moving and b) I got very dirty because I had to lie down on the ground to take the pictures.

Don't mind me, humidity makes me grumpy.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 According to what I can figure out from my bug book, this is possibly a cuckoo wasp, which is a family of wasps that parasitize the nests of other wasps and bees. Interestingly, they don't have a sting. My book shows several species, and they all look pretty much the same to me, so we're just going to have to go with cuckoo wasp. From an aesthetic standpoint, this is one of my favorite bugs. It looks like it is encrusted with sapphires and emeralds.

 I can really impress you with my observational skills when I tell you that I took over 40 pictures of this particular wasp and didn't notice until I looked at the pictures on my computer that it is missing a wing. I was too intent on crawling around in the dirt, trying to keep the bug in focus as it moved around really fast to actually look at it. Ironically, I did wonder why it wasn't flying.

 Zoomed in photo, because I think it's cute when bugs clean their faces with their front legs.

I did notice something interesting about its behavior, though it is not something I have an explanation for. The wasp would stop walking periodically and rub its back end on the ground. It also rubbed its back end with its wing (you would think I would notice the fact that it only had one wing when I was actually noticing what it was doing with its wing, but no) and with its back legs.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

Not a good picture, but I gave up in frustration. Between the wind, and the awkward location of this plant, I couldn't deal.

Did I mention it was really humid today?

Caterpillars are becoming a theme of this month. My backyard might be the Land of a Billion Caterpillars:

 I got a quick glimpse of the underside of one of the smaller parasa moth caterpillars.

 Yeah, it's still weird.

 These are looking even more like the checkered fringe prominent moth caterpillar. There's only two on this leaf now.

 Today was the day for getting a look at the underside of caterpillars, apparently.

So very many random bugs today:

 Exoskeletons

 The prettiest stinkbug

 I think this is a squash bug, but that is not squash it is eating.

 It is very unusual for me to see an ambush bug anywhere other than on goldenrod, or hidden in some other flower.

 This assassin bug was being unusually cooperative, so I took this picture just to see how close it would let me get with the camera. This close.

 What happened here?!

You could have been Backyard Bug of the Day if you had just cooperated with me...

The weather forecast for this coming week said that it was going to be like July. I don't even want to hear that in July, because to me, July has the second worst weather of all the months (January, to answer your uspoken question). However, the plants in my yard know that fall is coming:

 Sasafrass berries

More asters. I promise I am not going to post pictures of asters every day.

And now... Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I spotted two of these spiders today, in little tents of silk. Very tight tents of silk.

 Daddy-long-legs with a parasite - or two, at least, because it looks like there one on one of the front legs. It looks like the same kind the leafhopper had yesterday. I saw a scorpionfly with a couple on it today, too, but didn't get a picture.

 This is the builder of the huge web across the path last night. The web was gone when I went out today, and I have not gone out to look tonight because it's been raining (YAY!).

Trust me, this is a spider.