The Bugs in the Backyard: Yard Work

I spent the entire afternoon in the backyard today, because we were doing a lot of yard work, and for a brief time I thought it might be fun to not do a bug walk, and only post bugs that I saw in the course of doing my yard work. But I soon realized that that would leave you with two bugs and a spider (and by bugs, I mean species of bugs, not individual bugs, as you will shortly see), because while I saw a lot of bugs during my work, very few of them stuck around long enough for me to take off my work gloves and run to get my camera off the back porch, or the picnic table, or wherever I put it thinking it would be close enough. So, I did a bug walk. But the Backyard Bug of the Day come from my working time.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I spotted this gathering on the side of a tree as I was dragging some dead branches to the dead branch pile. They looked like sow bugs at first, which is not all that exciting a find, even if this huddling mass of them would be kind of notable, on a dry day at least. But being me, I took a closer look, and when I got closer, they looked like tiny springs. Which obviously they are not...

I went to get my camera, and when I got even closer, with the camera, they spread apart like this. Also, I could see them better. Not sowbugs, not springs. For a fraction of a second I thought spiders, or immature daddy-long-legs, because I saw all those antenna waving about and it gave the impression of a lot of long legs. But I quickly saw that they were, in fact, insects, and those are antennae.

I backed off and they came closer together again.

A friend asked what they were when I posted the picture on facebook, before I had a chance to look them up (and let's be honest. Chances are I wouldn't have bothered looking them up, and wouldn't have found them if I did), and when I said I didn't know, she looked them up - much faster than I ever would have found an answer, and said they are tree louse nymphs. I am a little skeptical, because they are bigger than the tree lice I have seen, but hey, there are a lot of species of tree lice. I did a bit of searching, and there are some internet sources that say that is what they are. However, you know I don't trust internet sources. I am an internet source, and you should not trust me for bug identifications. Anyway, chances look good that these might be tree louse nymphs. Which eat lichen. Of which there is none on this tree. Or bark, for that matter. My books were no help, of course, because they don't show very many species of anything, and they almost never show nymphs, but we're going with tree louse nymphs.

Funny thing about internet searching - it's like looking up words in the dictionary: it's easy to look up the definition of a word you know how to spell, and much harder to look up a word you don't know how to spell.

Trust me, that analogy works if you think about it...

I'm feeling much better today, so... chatty.

Anyway, lots of pictures of lots of tree louse nymphs.

They look like they should be related to bees, but they are not. Not even close. Except for the fact that they are insects.

There's been a lot of racket in the backyard lately due to the fact that the wrens hatched in the bird house. Aside from the gritchy noise the parents made whenever I got to close to their house, the babies made a cacophony every time one of the parents arrived with food. Which they do in a pretty constant stream all day (Wait a minute. Maybe that's why I am having such a hard time finding bugs... Hmmm...). It's cute, but today I was thinking that maybe it was time for those babies to fledge, because really, this has been going on for a while, and it seemed like time for them to go out and get jobs of their own... I mean, learn to fly and catch their own bugs. Then I noticed (remember, I spent all afternoon in the backyard, and yard work doesn't engage your brain all that much) that the parents seemed to be trying to get them to come out, too. Yeah, they kept bringing them food, but they also spent some time on nearby branches calling to them, and not in the gritchy way they talk to me. Sure enough, they fledged. I saw two of them take their first flights (In a peripheral vision, snap your head around and catch the end of it kind of way). I don't know how many there were. I don't pay THAT much attention to the birds. Anyway...

Backyard Bird of the Day:

Newly fledge wren, at the end of its first flight. After it landed I think it regretted its choice of landing spot.

It let me take a few pictures, and then started to poke its head through the netting, which I thought was a bad idea, so I reached out to stop it and it flew away to land in the grass and hop into a bush, which is a better place for a newly fledged bird than stuck in the deer netting on the blueberry bush.

The second baby landed on the grass and disappeared into a bush before I could even focus the camera on it.

Backyard Mammal of the Day:

Just because it's rare for chipmunks to be this accommodating. It was eating something.

This was the second bug I saw during my yard work. I believe it is a pearl crescent butterfly. It was remarkable - I was on my way back from dumping yet another load of dead sticks on the dead sticks pile when this beauty fluttered past me an landed. I said, "Don't move," and ran - literally ran, which I later regretted because I am not 100% back to health - and got my camera, and when I came back, it was still there! And let me get this close to take a picture! It only flew away when I breathed out too hard (because I just ran across the yard and back), and my breath ruffled its wing, which obviously disturbed it. Or maybe I just have bad breath, I don't know.

Random Bugs:

This critter (which looks like a bark louse... But waaaaaay smaller than the nymphs above) joined us in the arbor after lunch.

Young cricket. The blue thing it is standing on is a spoon from a frozen yogurt place. The spoon claims to be biodegradable. It's been in my backyard for over a year - it might be two years now, I forget. I am a terrible scientist. Probably because I am not a scientist. Anyway, it was sticking in the ground, but now it's just lying there, and while it's quite dirty, it doesn't show any signs of degrading away.

A moth, pretending to be a bit of dried leaf

An assassin bug molted here...

Hoverfly

The hoverfly, doing that thing that hoverflies do: hover

I love that beautiful, blue jewel they have in the middle of their foreheads. And yes, I know it's not really a jewel. Or a forehead.

The scorpionflies have been so shy this year...

This fly was doing a fun thing with its wings...

I am pretty sure it was signaling an airplane to land. Or maybe signaling to another fly. But that wing waving had to be a signal of something. Maybe that I should get out of its face with my camera.

I think these two hoppers are intimately connected.

This is the same ambush bug nymph I posted earlier this week (yesterday?), and it has changed color. It's not a great picture, and the other wasn't either, but it was white, and is now yellow.

I found a small milkweed bug, but not on the milkweed

Another hopper with a damaged elytron.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Here's the spider I saw while doing yard work. Yes, that's a spider. Side view. On the right is its abdomen, on the bottom are its legs, hiding its cephaplothorax.

See? Spider. Okay, it was not a cooperative spider. But I did just disturb it by cutting the (invasive) vegetation where it was hiding out. Also, it was in an awkward place for me to take pictures, so you'll just have to go with what I got.