The Bugs in the Backyard: Singing Season

I forgot to mention yesterday that I heard a cricket. It was the first time I heard one this year. I've been puzzling about that, because I know that crickets live through the winter in a sort of suspended animation called diapause, in which their metabolism stops when the temperature drops below freezing (as opposed to hibernation, in which the metabolism just slows down). Then when it warms up in the spring, they go about their merry way. It's been ages since the crickets that were living under the board in my yard moved on. So they have been alive and awake for a couple of months - what have they been doing in the meantime instead of playing music?

Backyard Bug of the Day:

This lovely bug, first seen the other day, is a scarlet lily beetle. Unfortunately, it is not a nice creature. A friend of mine saw the picture I posted on facebook and declared it her nemesis. It is another invasive species, sadly. Interesting that the flower bed where I have now seen it twice in a few days is where I just planted some lilies... (It was not on one of the lily plants).

It's beautiful, though.

And so shiny!

In my list of picture files I have this under the heading "Weird":

Eggs or something (a number of somethings, really) pupating, I would guess. I'll keep an eye on it to see what, if anything, emerges.

Backyard Bug Behavior:

This bee (wasp?) buzzed past me and landed on the side of a birdhouse. As I leaned in for a closer look, I realized it was scraping the wood.

It would drag down the wood a bit, a bit more than an inch, I think, then presumably eat or otherwise store what it had scraped off, and move up to scrape down some more.

Here you can see the ball it is scraping off. [Edit to add] I don't know what kind of wasp this is, but I presume that the wood scraped off will be chewed up and made into paper for a nest, using saliva as a binder.

Today's two bug walks featured a lot of bugs that flew away before I could take their picture. Here's what I managed to get.

Random Bugs:

Five weevils.

Speaking of invasive insects, this might be a gypsy moth caterpillar.

Ants have no respect for personal space.

Another banded hairstreak caterpillar. With a piece of a plant stuck on it.

I think this is a sawfly larva.

Gnat

Assassin. This is the last thing you see if you are an unfortunate bug.

I saw a LOT of grape leaf roller moths today. I have mentioned before that they are hard to photograph because they like to land on the underside of things. Here's one...

... and here's another...

... and another. All three of these were within about a foot of each other on a bush.

I spotted this weird, little thing on the deer netting around the blueberry bush. At first I thought it was dead...

... in part because it didn't care at all that I got really close with my camera.

But then it moved. Here it is cleaning its face and head with its front legs...

Here it is cleaning its tongue. That was unexpected.

I don't know if it's a fly (which is what the face looks like) or a bee, but that looks like a stinger.

I see looper caterpillars standing straight up, or sometimes straight out like this, but this one appears to be supported by a strand of silk attached to the leaf.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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It's hard to say if this spider is inside or outside the house now. It was on the outside of the door, but we opened the door, and now it might be inside. I didn't realize at first that this is a jumping spider, because it's not as fuzzy as the other jumping spiders I have seen, but then I saw it jump. Several times. And looking at it more closely, it does have the body shape and eye placement of a jumping spider.