The Bugs in the Backyard: Bugs in the Night

I am suffering from Bug Envy. A couple of weeks ago my brother-in-law showed me pictures on his phone of bugs that he saw when he worked on a farm a couple of years ago, and one of them was a stick bug. I have talked a little bit about this, how I did not know that there were stick bugs in this little corner of the world, and now that I know, I really want to find one in my yard. Well, the other day a neighbor told me that he saw one in his yard (you'd be surprised - or maybe not - how often my conversations come around to the subject of bugs these days). He lives 1/5 of a mile down the street! And he had a stick bug in his yard! Now I really want to see a stick bug! Which, of course, makes me think I will never see one. And it's not like I can just decide to go out in my backyard and find one. That would be a bit like the proverbial needle in a haystack - except to find the needle you could actually use a metal detector and/or magnet to help you find it (I am not sure that you are supposed to think about those things when that metaphor comes up, but I can't help it). And the thing is, stick bugs are really good at camouflage, because they look just like something that occurs naturally all over the place - sticks! So, realistically, there's probably not much chance of me seeing one. But I really want to now, and after all, I do have some talent at finding things that blend in. But unless I see one moving, the chances are pretty low. And that's if they are even out there in my yard. (Actually, there could be a million of them out there, for all I know).

I was thinking about my stick bug envy the whole time I was doing my bug walk today, because I was wallowing in the disappointment of the whole thing. I took fewer than 100 pictures this afternoon, and about half of them were plants. And it was even a lawn mowing day! I got the lawn mowed in record time because I wasn't distracted by any bugs, toads, or other nature that sent me scurrying for my camera (taking pictures can add about an hour and a half to my lawn mowing time if it's a particularly distracting day). 99% of the bugs I saw today were bees, and they were all sort of turbo charged today. The rest of the bugs were either no-shows, or uncooperative, flying away just before I could focus my camera to take their picture. It didn't help that it was really windy, and it was another pointlessly gloomy day (cloudy, but no rain). I was pretty grumpy about the whole thing, and so the dismal thought of never seeing a stick bug fit right in.

I even tried using the porch light this evening, but all I attracted were a lot of leaf hoppers, all green ones that didn't want their picture taken, and of a kind I have photographed many times before. But then I went out in the backyard with my flashlight to check up on the spiders, which I haven't done in a while, and finally, I found some bugs! A whole bunch of them, mostly on the same sapling! My mood is much improved now.

Wow, this was a really long way of saying I didn't find any bugs, and then I did.

I have a bit of a Backyard Bug of the Day dilemma, and I am going to post two of them, and then explain.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

A lovely, blue leaf hopper. It's specific species is not named in my books. This has been a favorite, because of the color, and it has not been BBotD yet this year, so, since I didn't find anything else to be BBotD today, and it was cooperative enough to let me take its picture, I named it BBotD on my facebook page.

And that brings us to the issue of Backyard Bug of the Day #2:

I am almost completely sure that this is a caterpillar. I didn't think so at first, having spotted it on this flower and taken a picture of it, but when I looked at it on the computer (after naming the leaf hopper As BBotD), I decided that I think it is. Yes, it looks like plant debris (which is what I thought it was at first), but there are caterpillars that look like lots of different things, including plant debris. There are also caterpillars that stick plant debris to their bodies to make them look like plant debris (and I know this because I have seen them before). I am not sure if this is one that looks like plant debris naturally, or if it has stuck stuff to itself, but I do think it is a caterpillar. (Note, by the way, all the slug slime on the flower).

And here's another reason why: when I went outside after dark, I looked at this again, and it had moved. It was kind of upright (you know how inchwormish caterpillars do that). Plant debris doesn't do that on its own.

By the time I was able to get closer (which was not easy, because of the location of this flower under a spider web, and near plants with slugs on them that I was trying to avoid touching), it had curled back down again. But I am still pretty sure it had moved. I am actually feeling like a bit of a doofus about this particular caterpillar, because I now realize that I have seen it on this plant several other times, and even taken pictures of it, and just thought it was a bit of plant debris. But that is why I am sure it is a caterpillar now, because the other times it was in different spots and different poses on the flower. Obviously, I am going to check it out tomorrow, too. When there aren't so many slugs (seriously, there are a LOT of slugs outside tonight. The whole time I was outside I was basically just trying to avoid brushing against anything with slugs on it, which was almost everything. I hate slugs).

Here are two pictures I took last week of the caterpillar:

To my current chagrin I realized when I went back and found these pictures that I actually posted a picture of this caterpillar that day (September 5) - in Arachnid Appreciation, because there was a tiny spider on the other side of this flower.

In my defense, this really does look like a dried up flower bud, though I did wonder at the time where it could have come from, and how it ended up on this coneflower. I now realize that it crawled there. That's some really effective camouflage!

Anyway, that's the deal with today's Backyard Bugs of the Day. And I guess the whole thing with the caterpillar is not the best sign that I would recognize a stick bug if I saw one...

I don't have a Backyard Bud of the Day today, because I didn't find anything in bud, but I do have an update of one from last week some time:

It was a pretty bud, and it's an even prettier flower. This one is a new one for the yard. I'll have to find my flower book and find out what it is.

Here are some fruits of fall:

Crab apples. I think this particular tree was planted by animals, but it is possible that I planted it and forgot about it.

Here's today's Random Bugs (and you will see them and wonder what I was whining about. But there are a lot fewer than most days!):

This hopper has been sitting on this same leaf for two days - there is another hopper on there with it, but today it was at the other end of the leaf - yesterday they were close together (and yesterday none of the pictures I took of them came out).

Here's what I found when I went out tonight after dark. There are four bugs in this picture:

They are all hemiptera; a couple of stink bugs, one I think is an assassin, and one I am not sure about. There were at least 7 Hemiptera on this little tree that I could see - there could have been more.

Heavy traffic.

Two bugs that pass in the night. (The lower one is another kind of stinkbug).

A motionless bee.

Snowy tree cricket. I can't tell if it has wings, but I can see that it's female.

Here's another one nearby. Not the ovipositor (at least I think that's what that is).

I have a few spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:
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I wish I could have had a better look at this spider, but it was in a tree, too high above my head for a close look. It was also kind of obnoxious, because just as I was about to take a picture of its web (which was held by just a couple of threads), it cut one of the threads! That basically made the web collapse.