A Sudden Change

Yesterday I told you to go outside, but I take it back. It's too cold outside. I whine about winter, but the truth is, I like it. I can deal with the cold - IF I can get acclimated to it. Days like today are why cold weather is a problem for me. Yesterday was close to 70ºF. Today the high was in the low 50s. It's that rapid change from temperate to frigid that gets me. If the temperature would go down a few degrees, hang out there a few days, go down a few more degrees... and on like that, I'd be fine. I'd adjust, and by the time it was in the thirties out, I'd be comfortable (I'll be honest. I almost never wear a real winter coat anyway). But that's not what it does. It drops twenty degrees overnight, and I have trouble getting used to that rapid change. So, I whine about it. IT'S TOO COLD OUTSIDE! When I came inside from doing my bug walk, which I didn't do until late in the afternoon because I didn't want to go outside in the dreary gloom of another cloudy day, it was 49ºF. I don't know what the temperature was when I went out, but it can't have dropped much in the time I was out there. I rushed through the end of my walk because my hands were getting too cold to use the camera.

In retrospect, I would probably have been more comfortable if I wasn't wearing shorts. But I fight long pants and long sleeves as long as I can (though I am not like one of those teenagers who wear shorts all winter long. I am not crazy).

Anyway, we have a freeze warning for tonight. Frost is expected. Which means this was the last hurrah of the morning glories:

Alas.

A lot of the trees have lost their leaves in the last couple of days, too, aided by the high winds and some hard rain:

Lots of crab apples are left.

There are two Backyard Bugs of the Day today, because we've reached the part of the season when it's a use it or lose it situation.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

This looks like a beetle, but with weirdly short elytra (HA! You thought I would never get around to looking up the proper name for wing covers, but I did!). I thought maybe this was an immature something, with not completely developed wings, but then this happened:

 This was a bit of a surprise for me. Needless to say, I did not react fast enough to get a picture of the wings unfurling.

 It flapped them a few times...

 And then this was amazing - it pulled them back in!

 It pushed the back of its body up to push the wings back into place. Man, I wish I had been video taping THAT! I'd like to see it in slow motion!

It's still not clear to me if the elytra are supposed to be that small - it is possible that there was an injury - but the wings fit under it, so I guess that's what they are supposed to be like. It just looks weird.

See that wing peeking out on the right? This is just before it unfurled its wings again and flew away. Of course, because I took this shot, I missed the shot of the wings coming out, and the flying away. I need faster reflexes. Or a faster camera. Or both. Or maybe just better timing and luck.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

This one is a little bit less interesting, just because it didn't move. I think it is a larva of some kind of Coleoptera (aka beetle). Even though it is just a larva, it was able to catch an aphid. Not that catching aphids seems so hard, but certain ladybugs make it look like it is... As is probably obvious, this is on the lawn chair. Any bug that likes to eat aphids should just go hang out on that chair, because there is still a parade of aphids on it.

There's a new candidate for taking over the world:

 This thing is just getting weirder. First of all, they are suddenly all over the yard.

 Second of all, I found this one apparently ingesting an aphid from what I thought was the... non-ingesting end.

 This thing totally creeps me out.

 I am finding them in various shades of oranginess and transparency.

Random Bugs:

 As you can probably imagine, I had trouble finding bugs today...

 It helps to look somewhere you've seen bugs consistently. Like this plant, where leaf hoppers like to hang out. I only saw three when I took the picture, but now I see that there are four (the fourth is a different species).

 Still seeing quite a few case moth caterpillars.

 I spotted a few flies hunkered down in among the goldenrod fuzz. Anthropomorphizing, I assumed they were thinking, "Wake me when spring arrives."

 I found a few of these, of course.

An interestingly, I saw a couple of ladybug larvae. It seems a bit late in the season to be a larva of any kind, but they are still around.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I don't know what the deal is with these spiders - they make a small pouch out of silk and hang out inside it. I don't see how that helps to catch prey, and it certainly doesn't hide them. I thought these two made interesting neighbors, the spider and the ladybug larva going through pupation.

 This jumping spider has pulled two leaves together with silk to make a hideaway.