What Season is This?

This summer has left me with one burning question regarding my backyard. With as little rain as we have had, HOW CAN WE HAVE SO MANY BLASTED MOSQUITOES?! Any time we have a wet spring or summer you hear that it means there will be a lot of mosquitoes. Because mosquitoes, as we all know, lay their eggs in water (specifically still water, so we are all warned to avoid having any containers in the yard that will collect water for mosquitoes to breed in), and their larvae are aquatic. But there is no water here this summer. So where are all the mosquitoes coming from? And we have daytime biters, too. Most summers we only have the evening ones.

Also, I read an article a few months ago about mosquitoes, who they like to bite and why, that kind of thing, and it said that the part of the body that is bitten most often is the hands, and I though that was ridiculous. I never get mosquito bites on my hands. Mostly I get them on my legs, or my arms, but hands? No. Except yesterday, when I got THREE bites on my right hand, and one on my left. The thing is, when you are peering through a camera, you don't necessarily notice the mosquito biting your hand, even though it is inches from your face. You are literally focused on other things.

Stupid mosquitoes.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I may have saved this bug's life. When I spotted it, there was a tiny assassin creeping up on it, and when I leaned in for a closer look, the assassin scurried away. I suppose it may have come back after I left, but for the moment, this bug was saved from having the life sucked out of it. The assassin did not want its picture taken.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

The plants in the yard continue to be confused over whether it's spring or almost autumn:

 Pokeberries. I took this picture because of the sky. It actually looks brighter in this picture than it really was - today was one of those gloomy days when from dawn until dusk it looks like 4 o'clock on a November afternoon. But it eventually rained! So that's something at least. I doubt we got even a quarter inch, though.

 Butter and eggs.

 Black birch seed cone.

Primrose.

 Morning glory.

This color does NOT photograph well.

Random Bugs:

 Many busy bees again today.

 Leaf hoppers often look sarcastic.

 We're checking in with this caterpillar again today - in this picture you can see its rear prolegs grasping onto the flower. This caterpillar would be much easier to photograph if it was on a different plant, but I am not going to move it. I decided to try to find out what it is, and my research has been inconclusive, but it might be a camouflaged looper. It also might be the caterpillar of the wavy lined emerald moth (I have seen those in the backyard). Anyway, camouflaged loopers stick bits of plants to them to disguise themselves, and according to one website, so do the adult moths. Never heard that before (I already knew that caterpillars do this from my own observations). Funny story - to find out what this is I googled "caterpillar that looks like plant debris" (because I am an appallingly bad googler), and the first two pictures that came up were my own blog. Which was, of course, not helpful, because my blog just says I don't know what it is! Anyway, it's a looper. Of some kind. That may or may not be a camouflaged looper (I can't tell if this caterpillar is naturally spiky like this, or if that is stuff stuck to it). My bug books were not forthcoming with answers, either.

 The other night when I was out after dark looking at bugs I found a whole bunch on this little tree, so I thought I would give it a good look during the day to find out if it is full of bugs during the day. Nope. Just this one, which I think is a brown marmorated stinkbug (no, I did not make that up. No, I don't know what marmorated means. I don't think I have ever been involved in any marmorating activities of any kind). I should go out at night again some time to see if that was a fluke that night, or if it the tree is generally full of bugs at night. But not tonight, because it's raining. A bit.

 I am seeing so many bugs with these mites lately...

 This is the kind of picture I have been getting of the buffalo tree hopper most of the summer. If I get a picture at all - often they just fly away before I have a chance to take a picture. What's weird about that is, the last couple of summers they NEVER flew away when I wanted to take their picture. They would scoot around to the other side of the stem, but they never flew away. I knew they could fly, but this is the first summer I have actually seen them do it.

 More mites! (Taken right before it flew away).

 Moth in the wild. I promise, I will soon stop taking pictures of these. Actually, this is a really good shot, so maybe I am done for now.

The moth eggs are still on the deer netting (or they were before it started raining, I don't know if they are there now. It never rained hard, though), and have turned color.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 When I see someone wearing neon orange, I always think that is a color that is not seen in nature, but it is. It is on the underside of this tiny spider. It's glowier in real life.

 I have no idea what this spider is eating...

 This could be some prey that this spider has wrapped up, but my other assumption (I should call it a hypothesis, it's more scientific) is that it is an egg case.

This is a really impressive web. It connects several plants, is quite complicated and large, and contains in the center this structure that you see here, which is about the size of an egg. I couldn't see the spider. The whole thing struck me as kind of Lord of the Rings-ish, but then I realized, no, it's more like a scene from Krull. I will assume that you have not seen that movie, and don't recommend it, because it is perhaps the worst movie ever made, not even in a so-bad-it's-good way, just flat out bad, Liam-Neeson-probably-wants-to-erase-it-from-his-resume bad, BUT there is a scene in the movie that involves a giant spider living in a cave (or something. I am fuzzy on the details, even though I have seen in in the last year, because I bought the DVD to see if it was as good as I remembered from when I saw it in the theater, because yes, I LIKED it when I saw it in the theater when I was a kid, and no, it is not as good as I remembered), and there is a structure something like this in the middle. Except there is a person living there instead of a spider. She is the spider's captive or something. Did I mention it's a bad movie? Anyway, if you see the movie (DON'T!), then you will get to that scene and say, "Ah, yes, it does look like that spider web I saw on The Bugs in the Backyard Blog!" And the people with whom you are watching the movie will shush you. If they can hear you over their own wails of despair about watching such a bad movie. Anyway, something tells me that whatever spider is living in here is probably scarily large. So naturally I would like to see it.