The Bugs in the Backyard: Never Put Off Until...

Today's lesson, girls and boys, is about procrastination. When I got up today, it was sunny, and I thought it was probably icky and hot and humid outside, so I was not in any mood to go out. And I am reading a book that has me pretty absorbed, and was doing the "just one more page, just one more page, just to the end of the chapter, just to the end of the next chapter" thing. Then I looked out the window and realized it wasn't sunny anymore. In fact, it was quite dark and gloomy, and even though it wasn't in the forecast, it looked like it might rain. So, I figured I had better get going on my daily search for insect life. I put on my tick repellent pants, grabbed my camera, and went on my bug walk. As it happens, it didn't start raining until after I went inside (though not much after), but I had to take all of my pictures in that dreary overcast lighting instead of bright sunshine, which I very much prefer. All's well that ends well, but if I had read one more chapter the bug walk might have been rained out. And as it is, I didn't get the kinds of pictures I prefer.

I did, however, find a cool Backyard Bug of the Day:

This is a plume moth. I didn't even have to look it up, this is one I know. And look what plant it is on!

This one is not on milkweed. One of the interesting things you notice when you obsess on a daily basis about what kind of bugs are in your backyard is that a particular kind of bug will suddenly appear one day, and you will see a lot of them. No plume moths up until today, and then, multiple plume moths. Although, that's not quite true, because I have been seeing a lot of the white plume moths, but mostly on the window screen at night, and that's not really an ideal photography situation for something skinny like this. Anyway, this species here suddenly appeared today.

Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America (I knew what it was, but I wanted to read about it) describes them as having an "'airplane' posture," which I totally agree with, because I have always thought they look like airplanes. I feel like an opportunity was missed in naming them plume moths, but they were probably named before the airplane was invented. Pity. The book also says, "the more than 140 species are essentially impossible to separate in the field." That probably means that the differences between species have to do with mouth parts or the size of their feet, or something to do with those spiky things, but I figure that there are at least 3 species that frequent my yard in the summer, the white ones, these, and some that are a darker color. The white ones are pretty boring, because they are plane and not so spiky, but I think these are pretty amazing.

Found this one a tree:

At first I thought it was some sort of cocoon, but close examination reveals it is probably an egg mass. I'll have to keep an eye on this - I haven't seen an egg mass like this before.

I know what you're thinking. You are wondering, was that plume moth the only bug on the milkweed today? Well, the answer to that is best demonstrated in a round of Who's On the Milkweed Today?

First a long shot of the plant, because it is a nice example of how it blooms.

I think this is the first shot I've been able to get really showing the globe of blooms. And, of course, large milkweed bugs.

There are two bugs on this plant (one of them is really out of focus).

If I had chosen to use a different shot for BBotD, you could have seen this bug in the background. It's a spindle legged

There's lot of bugs to eat, so of course the assassin bugs are there to eat them.

I don't know what kind of hopper these develop into, but in this stage I think of them as ghost hoppers.

There were a lot of them on this leaf, with another hopper.

Such an amazing bug.

Bug photobomb

Earwigs used to creep me out - it's the hooks on the back end, and the name - but when you really look at them they're pretty cool.

For more Who's On the Milkweed Today? check out Arachnid Appreciation at the end of the blog!

Random Bugs:

Firefly on the window screen. It wouldn't light up for me once I got the camera.

I had another nighttime visitor, this one in my bedroom, buzzing around the lamp as I was up late reading my book: