A Fungus Among Us

To my great surprise, it rained today.

The forecast said it was going to rain, but the forecast says that a lot to no effect, so I didn't actually believe it would rain. For a while I was torn between annoyance that it was raining, which was keeping me from doing a bug walk and mowing the lawn, and joy that it was raining. It the end it was the worst of all worlds - it rained enough to keep me from mowing the lawn and to keep most of the bugs in hiding, and make the air grotesquely humid, but not enough to do any real good - about an eighth of an inch. However, just now we've finished our first thunderstorm of the year, and it sounded like we got a bit more rain from that (but not the half inch hail that we were warned about), so all in all, a productive day. Because I did get to do my bug walk, and found some bugs, and didn't have to water the new plants.

 The rain brought out something interesting today.

 I spotted these orange blobs in the cedar trees as soon as I walked out today. Last summer I posted a picture of a cedar apple rust, a fungus that grows on cedar trees and apple trees. The picture I posted last summer was in its dried out state, and I promised to post a picture of what it looks like when a cedar apple rust fungus gets rained on. But I never did manage to get a picture - there wasn't much cedar apple rust in the yard last summer - or much rain, for that matter. But it looks like this year there's plenty of cedar apple rust at least. It was tricky to get good pictures, because they're all a bit high up in the trees, but I managed a couple (some taken with the telephoto lens).

 A bit like an alien life form!

 A tiny one.

 I am not sure if this is the same thing, or some other weird fungus.

 The lower part of this one shows you what it looks like when it's dried out - at this point we'd only had about 1/8 inch of rain, so not enough to make it go full alien. But it's pretty amazing, eh?

 Speaking of weird growths on trees... I have no idea what this is. Fungus or some sort of eggs?

Here's a better picture of the front porch tenant, taken from a distance:

 Today she didn't seem to mind me being there.

A more interesting bird event involved birds I couldn't even see. A pair of owls were having a raucous conversation in the woods this evening. There were at least two owls involved, and they made all kinds of strange sounds in addition to their classic hooting. It was fascinating. We tried to spot them with a flashlight, but now that there's leaves on the trees, we had no luck with that. It was amazing to hear, though.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 When I first spotted this, I assumed it was some kind of beetle, but up close it looks more like a moth.

Random Bugs:

 The weirdly encased caterpillar has spent the last two days standing on its head in the middle of this leaf. I am assuming it is undergoing some kind of transformation, either a molt or pupation.

It definitely looks different than it did when I first saw it. More compact, and all dark, without the white edging.

 Perfect timing

 I did see a lot of flies today.

 This may be the same caterpillar that I saw last week hanging there with the lace bug. If so, it's not looking so good.

 Getting closer to getting a decent picture of this moth...

 I don't know what this is, but it gives me the creeps. You have to see it move... except trust me, you don't want to. This is the stuff of nightmares.

 In order to really call yourself a bug photographer you have to be able to take an in-focus shot of a tiny caterpillar hanging from a thread in a breeze.

 Watching bees around the blueberry bush is highly diverting. They are confounded by the deer netting around the bush. And the flowers are at the end of their bloom, so frequently when a bee lands on one the flower falls off the bush. Then you find out which bees have good reflexes.

I saw a lot of spiders building webs today - probably because the rain had wrecked them.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This tiny jumping spider was hanging around on the hummingbird feeder.

This shot shows the spider climbing out of the mixture of rain and hummingbird food in the spout, after it had jumped in. Or maybe I should say jumped on - I think it stayed on the surface at first. It all happened very quickly, which is why I didn't get a picture (and an out of focus one at that) until it was climbing out. I was a bit startled by the stunt.

Here it is sitting on the edge saying, "I meant to do that."

Long arms...