Going For the Goldenrod

Look!

 Rain!

 Rain! (With moth eggs in it. Deer netting is not a good place to lay eggs. The rain seems to unstick them).

 Rain! And an assassin bug nymph!

Having said all that, it didn't rain today (even though the forecast said it would). That was all rain from last night/yesterday - more than an inch and a half of it! But everything was still wet this morning when I went out to do my bug walk. It was much drier later when I did my second bug walk. I found a decent number of bugs, and got some good shots, too - though a lot of them were ruined by the high winds we had today (not to mention the low light due to heavy clouds). It's very disappointing when you think you've taken some good pictures of a great bug and then you look at them on the computer and find out they are all out of focus. So you're not going to see all of the bugs I shot today, but you'll see enough.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Sorry, I didn't get a good shot of this bug at all, which should disqualify it as Backyard Bug of the Day, but I chose it anyway because I am pretty sure this is something I haven't seen before. Also, it was interesting timing for this bug to show up; the other day when I was doing some reading about dragonflies, I read that the smallest dragonfly species in North America is about an inch long. I was surprised by that, because I didn't know that dragonflies could be that small. But then I saw this bug flying around my garden bed today, and though it moved around too much for me to get a good look at it (much less a close-up picture), it looked just like a tiny dragonfly. So maybe this is that small dragonfly species? It flew like a dragonfly, and looked just like one, from what I saw.

 Sadly, it didn't land, so I just got these two flying shots.

So, my latest observation of life in the backyard: This goldenrod should be teeming with insects, and it's not.

Which is not to say that there are no insects on the goldenrod. Just not as many as should be there. There are some bugs on the goldenrod, as you can see in Random Bugs...

Random Bugs:

 Assassin

Hoppers are more interested in the stem of the plant than the flowers.

Bumblebee

Stink bug

Hover fly

Hover fly

 Grasshopper

Looper caterpillar. You'll be seeing this one again, later in the blog...

Of course, there are bugs on other plants, too...

 Click beetle. I saw a lot of these in the spring, and then none for months, and now I am seeing them again.

More assassin bugs

 Honey bee

 Sorry, couldn't help myself. The bee was so cute.

 Candy striped leaf hopper

 Remember ages ago I posted a picture of this pistol case bearing caterpillar? And the case has been stuck to the leaf for all this time? It's not stuck anymore, and it doesn't look like there's anything inside. I wonder if it finally eclosed?

 American dagger moth, with a broken wing that gives a peek at the underwing pattern.

 Huge bee... More on this later...

 Tree cricket

 Better look at the tree cricket

 A different view of a different grasshopper

Hoverfly AND ants, AND aphids

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 It's so hard to tell the difference between fighting and flirting. The family resemblance to lobsters is pretty evident, though.

 Gimme a hug!

 Remember that little looper? It came very close to danger... (But the picture above was taken hours later than this one, so I know it didn't get caught).

 Come on, gimme a hug!

 Spiders like goldenrod, too.

 Mite

 I didn't point it out before, but in the picture of this bee above, there is a spider on a nearby flower. Here you can see the bee going for that flower.

 And the spider frantically fled!

 It backed off, waving its front legs.

 Then it just turned and retreated. Note that the bee doesn't really seem to notice.