Pretend It's Wednesday, July 15, 2015

I have rules for myself here on the blog, and today I am going to break one. I have a rule that the pictures I post for a particular day's blog had to have been taken that day. Well, as you know I have been on hiatus for a couple of days because I went away - I was a couple hundred miles away from my backyard. BUT, the day I left I got up an hour earlier than I really had to in order to do a bug walk before I left. I took my pictures and then intended to post my blog from my hotel that night. But the internet at the hotel was awful, and so I couldn't do the blog. In fact, that night after a certain point I couldn't do anything online. It was very annoying. Well, I have the pictures I took Wednesday morning, and I didn't get home to take any today, so this blog is going to be Wednesday's blog. Then tomorrow we will go back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A hopper nymph. I love those eyes. I have posted pics of much more spectacular hopper nymphs, but today I didn't have a choice for BBotD, and those days, I did, so... here you go. A fun thing about hopper nymphs is that when they don't want their picture taken and are contemplating hopping away, they rock side to side in indecision. It's adorable. Go find one and watch it do this.

Random Bugs:

 On Tuesday evening my husband was in the kitchen and kept hearing a chirp. He wondered what it was, thinking maybe it was a bird outside. I didn't hear it, so I couldn't say. But then late that night (late enough that it was Wednesday, therefore qualifying this picture for this blog) I found this cricket at the bottom of the basement stairs. It is one of those camel crickets I posted about recently, that like basements and oatmeal. Also, it is very dusty at the bottom of the basement stairs, and there is some dried mud there that somebody ought to clean up. I captured the cricket and released it outside.

 Look, a wild bee!

Have you ever played peek-a-boo with a beetle?

 I think this moth was still alive. I turned it right side up. I think it got knocked out by the rain - it was a bit waterlogged.

 Buffalo tree hopper

 To demonstrate how buffalo tree hoppers are often uncooperative, compare this picture to...

... this picture, taken about two seconds later.

Who Was On the Milkweed On Wednesday?

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 There is nearly always a spider living at the bottom of the basement stairs. When one dies, another takes over the territory. I found the cricket above underneath this spider's web. It doesn't seem to have been in danger. The cricket is much larger than the spider, anyway.

 I found this spider dangling from my monopod. I removed it to a leaf, and that is how I was able to take its picture (dangling from the leaf).