Happy Anniversary!

 Belated Happy Anniversary to The Bugs in the Backyard Blog! I actually don't remember what the date was that I started this blog last year (and am too lazy to look right now, because I missed the date, so it doesn't really matter), but it was in late April, so I have been blogging about the bugs and other life in my backyard for over a year now. I haven't reached 365 posts yet, because I didn't post regularly during the winter, but I am still pleased that I have been able to keep this up for a year. It's been a lot more work than I expected, but if my backyard bugs have made anyone smile, or laugh, or gasp, or look at bugs in a different, more positive light during the last year, then the work was justified. Particularly if I have made anyone decide not to squish every bug that they see. I hope that is the case, though maybe not, because it doesn't seem likely that habitual bug squishers would be reading this blog. Still, I hope I have made people see how amazing bugs are when you really look at them up close.

I didn't have a lot of time for bug hunting today, though I did go out looking twice. I didn't have much light the second time, but I was hoping for a glimpse of some interesting crepuscular bug life. I thought today might be a good day because it was in the 70s (after a night in the 30s, though. The difference in temperature between night and day today was only tenths of a degree off of 40 degrees - 37.9ºF low to 77.5ºF high), but I didn't really have enough time to look, so I really can't say.

I did see another butterfly, though. I didn't get a picture of it, or even enough of a look to see what kind it was (dark colored wings, that's all I got), but the point is, they're out there.

First thing today:

 Building continues on the nest on the front porch. I am thinking in a few days we are going to have to start using the back door. I like the nice decorator touch they have given the nest, shredding one of our tarps to give their home a hint of blue.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what this is, but it has to be related to the crane fly. Or maybe it is a kind of crane fly. It sort of looks like those obnoxious aliens in the coffee room in Men in Black.

You can probably tell from the background that this is one of the bugs I found on my second bug walk as it was getting dark.

 Not a good shot of the Backyard Bug of the Day, but I am including it to see if you can spot the other critter in this picture. I'll give you a hint: it's not an insect, but it is relation. Once you find it I think you will understand why I didn't notice it when I took the picture, and almost didn't notice it when I looked at the picture on the computer.

 Random Bugs:

An adorable little bee.

Here it is zoomed in.

 Weevil

 Eye test

 Here's the moth in the above picture.

Some interesting Backyard Bug Behavior today:

 There was a lot of activity around one of the ant nests. First I saw a couple of ants dragging this centipede out of one of the holes. The colors of the centipede make it look like it got paint dripped on it, which reminds me of the part in James and the Giant Peach where the caterpillar is covered with paint. Anyway.  The ants jostled it around a bit...

 Then one of the ants took it on its own.

 It walked around a bit, rather clumsily at times, and like one of those humorous videos you see of dogs trying to get through a door with a stick that is too long to fit, only in this case the stick is a dead centipede, and the narrow doorway is two blades of grass. Ants may be strong, but they don't appear to have the best spatial awareness.

 Eventually more ants came to help, and even though the start of all of this was the removal of the centipede from the hole, they carried it back down again.

This ant came along carrying what looks like a sow bug.

 Then these ants pulled another, bigger sow bug out of the hole, only to bring it right back down again.

While these two brought in another sow bug from somewhere.

All of this happened in just a couple of minutes as I watched them.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 This is the spider from above, in a different "You can't seem me!" pose. This was a really, really fast runner.