Freckles

I am sure my life must seem really glamorous and exciting, the intrepid bug hunter out in the backyard in all weathers, looking for bugs. But like many seemingly glamorous professions, it's really mostly moments of awkwardness. Specifically, when you want to take pictures of bugs you sometimes have to contort yourself into some really bizarre and not always stable positions. Several times every day I acknowledge how lucky I am that no one can see my while I am taking pictures, because if anyone saw me, I'd be embarrassed. Face it, no one looks good when they are squatting, and that is one of the least awkward of the positions I might be found in when I am photographing bugs. Unfortunately with most of the leaves gone the backyard is not as sheltered as it is in the summer, so I have to remain vigilant to protect my pride.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Another springtail, which, if I may remind you, is not an insect. According to some scientists. This is obviously a different species from the one the other day, with a very different shape. It's also bigger, but still really, really, really tiny.

 They are called springtails because underneath their bodies is some sort of doohickey that they flex or something that causes them to spring away. Not visible in this picture.

I don't know why I am suddenly seeing springtails, but maybe it's because with the shortage of bugs right now I am forced to look harder.

Random Bugs:

 Today I found a couple of tiny weevils on the lawn furniture, too.

 This one is interesting because if you look carefully, you can see that it is probing at a space that looks different than the rest of the surface, which makes me wonder if it is eating something off the surface of the chair. And now I don't want to sit on that chair anymore.

 I think this ladybug larva might be getting ready to pupate. Its posture makes me think that it is anchoring itself to the branch.

Sometimes I even impress myself with the things I manage to spot. You can't tell from this picture, but this was a really impressive find. It blended in really well.

 The ant found it pretty easily though. Actually, come to think of it, this might be an assassin bug of some kind, so maybe it was not a good thing for the ant to find it, and maybe the ant thought it was part of the branch, too.

 I found a couple of case moth caterpillars today. They have definitely grown since I first saw them a few weeks ago. I think maybe you can even tell that from the pictures? If you remember what they looked like before.

 This was an interesting leaf hopper. It was small for a leaf hopper, and kind of translucent.

Also interesting in this picture - see the yellow stuff on the lower left? Particularly the bit closest to the leaf hopper?

 Tiny somethings that appear to have recently hatched. This is as close as I could get with the camera, so you know they are tiny.

 Maybe this can give a sense of scale.

 This is a tree about eight feet tall, that had only these few leaves left on it, way up at the top. I thought it looked picturesque, so I took a picture, and as I was focusing thought, "Are those bugs on those leaves?"

Yup. Aphids...

 ... and ants.

 This thorn mimic plant hopper was still hanging around on the same branch, but facing the other way. Which is how you know it's not really a thorn, because real thorns can't do that.

I had an amusing spider encounter today, as you'll see in Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 I thought I wasn't going to find any spiders today when I saw this tiny speck dangling from a thread. It climbed back up to the branch...

 ... And then jumped onto my hand. I coaxed it back onto the branch, and it just jumped right back onto my arm. Then it jumped around on my arm quite a bit.

 It was not cooperative. The rule for bugs is, if you are going to crawl on my hand, you have to sit still to have your picture taken. None of them follow the rule... I love the blue around the eyes!

 If you'd like to know how small this spider is, those are freckles on my arm. I did finally get it to stay on the branch - I do not still have a tiny, white spider crawling around on my arm.

 I haven't seen an orb weaver web in a while, so I was pretty psyched to spot one today, a kind of small one. I didn't see the spider on the web, but there was a tell-tale curled leaf, so I looked inside, and there it was.

 I went out again after dark to see if I could get a better look. It was out of its leaf bower, but just barely, and I couldn't get close because of the position of the web, but at least there's this. It's eating something.