And So It Begins

I went to see the movie Ant Man today (spoilers coming). I usually read movie reviews for movies I go to see, because I need to know what to expect (not a big fan of suspense or surprises), but I never got around to reading this one, so I knew very little about it before I went, other than what I saw in the trailer a few months ago. Mainly we went because my husband wanted to go - I am not very interested in superhero movies. What I knew about the movie was that the eponymous superhero shrinks down to the size of an ant - hence the name. What I didn't know is that his henchmen/minions/whatever-you-call-them-if-you're-a-good-guy are actually ants! So the movie is full of ants! And they are heroes! Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie just because of that. It was even better than the plot point revolving around a bee in Minions.

Due to a number of factors, the weather being one of them (The forecast was wrong when it said we would have a heat wave starting Wednesday. It started today), I had less than half an hour to do a bug walk today, and it was in a hot, sunny part of the afternoon. I actually saw a lot of bugs, but not ones I could take pictures of - meaning, they were flying around. Bees, mostly, but also gnats, and a few other things. I took pictures of exactly four bugs during my bug walk. So, I turned on the porch light before we went out for the evening, in the hopes that there would be bugs there when I got home. There were, mostly beetles and small, flying things, but I did manage to at least get a Backyard Bug of the Day from there.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 You probably can't tell from the pictures, but this is a pretty small moth - less than half an inch, I'd say.

 Hoverfly on balloon flower

 Japanese beetle

 Courting attempt that was not appreciated

 Katydid on the front porch. Despite my precautions, it managed to follow me inside. I heard it, though, and was able to catch it and send it back outside again.

 There were a lot of these beetles on the porch.

 This is a bad picture, but I like how it shows the wings not fully tucked away.

There weren't enough moths for a Porch Light Lepidoptera Lollapalooza, but there were a couple of pretty ones:

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Sad and confounding picture for today - the spider is dead, and has some kind of brown liquid pooled on its body.