Ladybugged

If you're one of those people who are afraid of all insects, today my backyard would have been a nightmare for you. Of course, if you are one of those people, you are probably not reading this blog. Unless you are doing it for therapeutic reasons, in which case I apologize for the close ups of the spotted cucumber beetle's face yesterday that probably gave you a fit of hysterics. Anyway, if you are one of those people then today the backyard would have been like a horror movie because the ladybugs were swarming.

It's getting on toward winter, you see, and ladybugs are looking for a place to stay out of the cold. In particular there is a species of ladybugs that has been imported from Asia that people purchase to release in their gardens that swarm at this time of year looking for a good place to overwinter. (Bad idea, by the way, to import bugs from other parts of the world). In their natural habitat, which I believe is warmer than here, they gather in cracks and crevices of stone cliffs, but here, there being a shortage of cliffs, they try to get into cracks and crevices of people's houses. They look for a house that is high up (hey, mine is on the top of a hill!), and brightly colored (hey, mine is blue and green!), and they look for nooks and crannies to hide in for the winter. If they can get inside, bonus! They won't ever have to be cold!

I have had one of these infestations before. Here's a couple of fun facts about this particular species of ladybug (recognizable by their orange color): 1) They bite (and the bites are painful and can itch for weeks). 2) They can trigger asthma. So I would much prefer NOT to have thousands of them in my house this winter, but I suspect my bug vacuum is going to be going through a lot of batteries in the next couple of months.

For today, however, I found the situation kind of charming - to a point. There is something inherently amusing about such a large number of bugs that are almost universally considered as cute. I saw what was going on before I even went outside, because I could see the ladybugs zooming past the windows. When I went outside, I had not gone more than about three steps before I had one on my leg. They were crawling all over the side of the house. They were flying around. I felt quite a few land in my hair. Many of them were found crawling on my clothes, or on my arms and legs (we're back to shorts weather!). This is where it got kind of annoying, because they do have sort of a pungent aroma when they are annoyed, and they were annoyed when I brushed them off of me, so I actually had to change my shirt when I went inside because I smelled so strongly of ladybug. At least two hitched rides inside on my clothes - I have no idea where they ended up, because they flew off once they were in. Like I said, if you are terrified of bugs, you would have been freaked out for sure - and it's such a horror scenario: cute, little bugs swarm and turn on the humans.

At least none of them bit me.

Unfortunately, it was not a scene that was easily captured in photographs, because the ladybugs were moving, and fast. Here's the best I got:

 Every time I tried to take a picture of the ladybugs on the side of the house, they would suddenly disperse. Here's a few of them, anyway.

I noticed some on an upstairs window so I ran inside to get this shot. You've always wondered what a ladybug looks like from underneath, haven't you?

I found the Backyard Bug of the Day on the side of the house, too:

 I think this is a caterpillar, but I am not 100% sure, because I can't really tell how many sets of prolegs it has. It looks like the right number, but there might be one more.

 Zoomed in to show the face and true legs.

 It was moving pretty fast, so I never got any really close shots.

I did take video, though: Click HERE to see the caterpillar walking up the side of the house.

That's not the only caterpillar video I took today! Have you been wondering what the saddleback caterpillar looks like underneath, and how it moves? Well, today is the day you find out!

Pictures first:

 The leaves that this caterpillar has been eating are on a vine. The vine winds up a goldenrod plant and then reaches out to another plant. The caterpillar systematically ate up all the leaves on the part of the vine between plants, except for this fragment if left behind, and then lately has been eating the leaves on the part that winds up the goldenrod stem (seen in the background). So, today when I was looking for it, I looked on the leaves around the goldenrod, and didn't see the caterpillar, so I figured it had moved on (I don't think it is done growing yet. From pictures I have seen its spiky protrusions have a ways to grow), but then I espied it on this leaf fragment. It was facing downward, as you see in this picture. While I was fiddling with the camera it turned around (I missed that part), but then started crawling up the leaf and onto the vine. Huzzah! Finally a chance to see what it looks like underneath!

 It looks weird underneath.

 As you can see, no prolegs, really, but... well, I don't know what to call them.

 And look! A caterpillar face under that weirdness! (Not that caterpillar faces aren't weird anyway).

Ready to see it in action? Click HERE to see the saddleback caterpillar on the move.

If you have a quick eye you can catch a glimpse of my finger on the right of the screen at a couple of points, but I had to move it away before the caterpillar and its venomous spikes bumped into it. The caterpillar would definitely not have seen it coming! You'll see that the caterpillar does have the usual three pairs of true legs, and see its face a bit more. And the really weird way it moves.

As you can imagine, this was a pretty exciting event for me.

Daily Dandelion:

 This is actually the same dandelion that was looking so woebegone the other day.

It still looks pretty woebegone.

Backyard Buds of the Day:

 A fascinating thing that I realized last year is that a lot of trees have their buds for next year already by the fall. These will be the leaves on a black birch tree next spring. Something to look forward to.

 I have these two hazelnut bushes, and I was curious about these little doohickeys here, so I looked them up, and these are the buds for the male flowers that will bloom next spring. These are very young hazelnut bushes, so next spring will be their first time blooming. These are, in fact, the only two male buds on the tree.

They also have female flowers, but I am not sure if these are the female buds, or leaf buds. The look kind of the same. I guess I'll find out next spring.

For the gorgeous day we had today I was expecting a lot more bugs in the yard than I actually saw. I mean, there were a lot of bugs, but not quite the variety I was expecting. Mostly just a lot of the same things. Random Bugs:

 Gorgeous craneflies.

 Zoomed in wings.

 This assassin bug has the brightest markings I have ever seen. I don't know if that's just variation among individuals, or an age thing, or a gender thing, or a species thing, or what. It's pretty striking to look at, though.

Fun story about an assassin bug today. I was walking down a backyard path today, looking for bugs, and an assassin bug of this variety dropped out of a tree right onto my hand. I don't know if that was an accident, or if it was hoping to take me out, but it was quickly removed from my hand.

Okay, that wasn't much of a story. I guess you had to be there.

 I thought this looper was pretty funny - it's grasping the leaf with its back end, and eating the flower with its front end.

 Caterpillar. I don't know what kind it is, but if it goes by the usual rules of caterpillar irony, being so bland and brown it must turn into something really bright. (That's not really a rule of caterpillars. I made it up, because it seems to be true that really bright caterpillars generally turn into something brown and boring).

 Here's its face. Sort of.

I really love these little dark green wasps. Or bees. I am still not clear on that.

 Here it is excreting something...

A sequence:

Just as I was trying to get over being freaked out by earwigs, I took this picture...

 And then, while still looking at it through the camera, I put my hand on the tree near it - too near, apparently, because it JUMPED off the tree. In my general direction.

 After frantically making sure it was not on me anywhere, I was relieved to find it on the ground at the base of the tree.

Aphid.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider holding something...

Zoomed in that doesn't look like a bug, it looks like plant matter. But I can't be sure. The spider sure looks annoyed, though. Maybe it thought the thing was a bug, and it turned out to be plant. Like when you think you are getting chocolate chips and they turn out to be raisins. That's pretty much the face I make in that situation.

 This is the kind of spider that is cool as long as it's on the OUTSIDE of the house.