The Bugs in the Backyard: July 2015

I went to a baseball game tonight and found more evidence that there aren't as many bugs around. Usually when you go to a game at night, if you look up at the lights (which will have you seeing spots for a while afterward), you'll see bugs zooming around them. Like the porch light, but lots of them, and much brighter. Tonight I could only see a couple of bugs around the lights. It is possible that they spray for bugs around the stadium, but that has never been the case when I have been to games in other summers. The lights are always teeming with bug life. But not tonight. However, there was one enormous moth that was flitting about over the stands while we were waiting for the post-game fireworks. During the fireworks it went right over my head, but it wasn't exactly an ideal situation for bug identification, so I have no idea what it was. It was predominantly brown, and huge. That describes a couple of different kinds of moth. The lady next to me thought it was a bat, that's how big it was. I wish I'd been able to get a good look at it.

Today was mostly about the Lepidoptera, in the backyard and on the porch when we got home from the baseball game.

Let's start with the butterflies.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Just kidding.

Better? I think this is a Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly.

I should be able to tell if this is a male or a female by the color of the markings on the dorsal side, but I am a bit iffy on that. I think this is a female.

This butterfly did not stay still for a second.

I couldn't find this one in my book. The closest I could come up with is the Eastern Comma. Which is similar to the Question Mark. I am not making these up.

Some kind of hairstreak.

Cabbage white. I like these when they are sipping nectar from flowers. I don't like them when they are laying eggs on my Brussels sprouts in the garden.

I saw a tiger swallowtail, too, but it declined to sit for its portrait.

These next two pictures are zoomed in:

Bees and butterflies get a bit competitive sometimes...

A skipper

Now for the moths, courtesy of the porch light:

Bees were bountiful today, too:

Still trying to get a good picture of the blue bee. It makes me so happy that there is a blue bee...

Unfortunately, it spends most of its time delving into the purple coneflowers, so all I get to see is its back end.

Then a lot of the time it's hard to see the blue color.

This is the same kind of enormous bumblebee I showed you last week (or the week before?) on those other pink flowers.

Compare to this other species of bumblebee on the exact same bloom.

Some flowers make it very hard to get a good look at bees that visit them.

I tried to get a picture to show the bees hovering around these plants...

Random Bugs:

Dragonfly! Can you see it?

I thought there was something odd about this hoverfly's position...

Ah. You can see the ambush bug's proboscis sticking into the hoverfly.

This looked interesting. Too bad this is as close as I could get.

I am not an expert on insect eggs, but these look more like they have been punctured by something eating the bugs inside than like they have hatched. These eggs have kind of a perforation around the top, I think, and they open there. I think.