Listening

It was 43ºF at about 3:30 in the morning, and there was not a single animal sound to be heard. If not for the faint sound of cars on the highway a mile away, it would have been completely silent in the night. It was strikingly different when I went outside at around 1:00 in the afternoon today. I was greeted immediately by the song of the cicada - quite a few of them, calling from different trees in the yard. There were crickets, too. So much sound. I even got to hear the quick buzz of a wasp zooming past my head. Insects are a noisy bunch. If you are close enough, you can even hear the beat of a butterfly's wing.

Hearing them is one thing; finding them with my eyes is another. Bees predominated today, methodically harvesting nectar from the goldenrod. If you want a glimpse of bee biodiversity, check out goldenrod. For about one second today, a single goldenrod plant that I was looking at had five different species of bees on it. Actually, one of them might have been a fly; it's hard to tell sometimes. I don't know what makes a bee a bee, and a fly a fly. I thought I knew, until I started looking at bugs all the time, and looking through books to find out what's what. There's a section in one of my books entitled "Bee Flies," and another entitled "Flower Flies: Bee Mimics." There are also "Flower Flies: Wasp Mimics." And I still haven't figured out the difference between bees and wasps, other than that I have heard that bees can only sting you once, and wasps can sting you over and over. For obvious reasons I don't consider that a useful method of determining which is which when I see them in the yard. Anyway, for all of those bees on that plant, I didn't get a picture of a single one. That one second in which they were all still was not long enough.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 According to my book, this is a Giant Eastern Crane Fly. I knew it was a crane fly already. It's nice when I look something up and find the exact thing I am looking for.

I've had to zoom in on this picture so you can get a good look - it was kind of high up on a tree, and even standing on a wobbly rock that top picture was as close as I could get.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

I am not even sure this is worth posting, because it's a terrible picture, but I guess it makes the point that there are not a lot of buds out there right now.

The caterpillar eggs survived the light rain the other day:

Some of them, as you can see, have turned really dark, which I am taking as a sign they are soon to hatch. It even looks like one of them might have hatched already, on the lower edge of where the lines cross.

Many Random Bugs today:

 A bug on that tree in the daytime!

 Stink bug giving me the stink eye.

 The bigger bee did not seem to want the company of the smaller bee.

 I think this is a great spangled fritillary, but the color seems off to me. More brown and yellow than orange.

 I see some roughed-up butterflies around the yard, often with wings that are missing pieces. These wings seem intact, mostly, but in some places the scales have been rubbed off.

No, I did not hear its wings flapping.

 I have never seen such an iridescent leaf hopper.

 Cute little weevil.

 We need to see that up closer...

 Zoomed in.

 I can't tell if this is one cricket or two.

 This moth is at least 2 inches long.

 Semi-cooperative wasp...

 I can't tell what it's doing here...

 Small milkweed bug. On goldenrod. Go figure.

 The saddleback caterpillar is still hanging around. It hasn't moved since yesterday, which I think means it is preparing to molt.

 Next time I am feeling dissatisfied with my looks I will remind myself that at least I don't have to go through life looking like a drop of pus.

I went outside on the back porch this evening because my husband told me there was a big moth on the window screen:

 This is the moth he was talking about. It is clear that my husband does not spend a lot of time looking at moths, because this is NOT a big moth. It's only about an inch long. It's one of those cool, art deco looking ones, though.

 Here's another back porch moth. An interesting thing - the back porch light does not attract anywhere near as many bugs as the front porch light. Of any kind. You can leave the back porch light on for hours, and the most you are going to see is about three bugs. If you leave the front porch light on for half an hour you could get a hundred bugs. It is always like this. And on the back porch it's usually a moth, maybe a beetle. The front porch gets all kinds of bugs, from gnats to katydids. And so many moths. I have never been able to figure out why this is. The front porch is closer to trees than the back porch, but beyond the trees is the street, and a streetlight. The back porch faces nature. Yes, just beyond the porch is grass, but there are also trees, and wildflowers, and just so much more that is natural, and yet, the front porch is where all the bugs go. The light fixtures on the front and back porches are even identical. It's a mystery...

 Back porch cricket.

Since I was outside, I figured I might as well look around for some bugs. I didn't find many, but I did spot this tiny caterpillar, dangling in the dark.

I also spotted a pair of eyes watching me from the shadows. Racoon. Its eyes reflected the light from my camera spot.

 It was a good spider day. I mean, if you like spiders. If not, you should probably skip this bit. Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider.

You can't really see it, but the marbled orb weaver is hiding in that curled up leaf in the middle.

I am posting a whole bunch of pictures of this spider because I think it's adorable and I couldn't decide which picture to post. I saw it hiding next to the door in the kitchen while I was eating lunch, and then it jumped onto the light switch (because it's a jumping spider).

Needless to say, I left the light off.

 I have seen this orb weaves web in the same spot for weeks, but tonight was the first time I have seen it on the web. Before I have only had peeks of it hiding in its leaf tent.

 Orb weaver #1

 Size comparison. I hope you appreciate how brave I am for putting my finger next to that spider.

Eggs for dinner. Caterpillar eggs.