Living the Moment

I am obsessive about taking pictures; I take pictures of everything, but there are some things, some situations, some experiences  that are simply unphotographable, and so you only get to experience them in the moment. That is not a bad thing, in fact, it's probably a good thing, but it does mean that I don't get to show you what happened, I can only tell you.

Today's serendipitous moment of beauty happened when a butterfly flew circles around me. It did several laps. Butterflies look very wafty and carefree sometimes, as if they are just flying around on a series of whims, but believe me, they can get some speed up when they want to, and this butterfly, which I think was a great spangled fritillary (no, I am not making that up. I feel compelled to mention that every time I post about that species of butterfly, but it's true. That is its name), but it could have been another fritillary. This is one of those situations where the more you learn about something, the less you are sure about what you know. But back to the point, I have no idea why the butterfly did what it did, but I was charmed for sure.

And speaking of the great spangled fritillary, here's the Backyard Bug of the Day:

 The great spangled fritillary!

 It never did figure out how the hummingbird feeder worked.

Speaking of which, just before this butterfly enchanted my by flying circles around me, I saw a hummingbird zoom away from this feeder. It then did something peculiar, flying into a tree, zooming through the branches, looping up and around it a few times, and then zooming off.

But back to the great spangled fritillary...

Time for Who's On the Milkweed Today?

Why look! The milkweed is so attractive there are TWO butterflies on the same plant at once! Sadly, this is as close as I got to them, so I didn't get a look at the smaller one, but it looks like some kind of hairstreak. There was also another butterfly in the vicinity, that took off fast, that may have been a monarch.

 Candy striped leaf hopper

 Ladybug

 The suddenly ubiquitous large milkweed bug

 Yes, I know, I keep posting pictures of bees, but bees are so nice to look at...

 Leaf hoppers

 This is one of the cutest bugs you will ever see - the red milkweed beetle. Not to be confused with the small and large milkweed bugs, which are in the order Hemiptera, this is in the order Coleoptera. The milkweed plant has a surprising number of bugs named for it. Must be because it is so attractive to bugs.

 Oh, what great timing I have, to have caught this beetle... um... excreting something.

Random Bugs:

 When I get the right shot, I can never resist a zoomed-in crop of insect eyes.

 I think this is a checkered beetle.

 Remember the four-lined plant bug? This one was quite obliging today...

 ... posing for me...

 ... to get picture of three different vantage points. That's how you know that this bug is green and black on top, and orange on the bottom.

 I think this is a ladybug, but I am not sure. I wish I'd been able to get a better shot to show its shape. There are some ladybugs that don't have that traditional shape (you know what I am talking about) but there are other bugs that are similar to ladybugs that are not.

 Female velvet ant, which you may recall is actually a species of wasp. And the female has no wings.

Another good spider day! Arachnid Appreciation:
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Not a good shot of the spider, but what it was doing was fascinating - taking apart its web. It did this with remarkable speed; this whole section you see here was sort of swooped up in less than a second. It was stunning to see.

 Then it immediately began to build a new web. This was also a very fast process, but not as fast. But then, it's always faster to destroy something than to build it. Think of sandcastles...

 I love the pattern on its back. So sinister...

 I love getting packages in the mail, but I still sort of cringe when I look in the package bin and see a box in there, because I don't really want to reach in there and grab it. Today, for instance, there were ants crawling all over the top edge of the bin, and I didn't want to lean into them and end up covered in ants. I don't hate ants, and I am not afraid of them, but I don't want them crawling all over me. The same with the spiders I know are in the bin. I like spiders. I just don't want them crawling up my arm. Anyway, I got a package today, and here's the spider that came out of the bin with it (the box is the background of this shot).

 It's a pretty cool spider, really. I wonder if our postal carrier is afraid of spiders...

Jumping spider. It was very jumpy.