A Nice Day

Around 11 o'clock this evening I was standing outside on the back porch, looking at the stars, and listening to the cricket chorus in full swing, and appreciating that it was just as warm at that point in the evening as it had been at the warmest point of the previous afternoon. Which is to say, today was a much nicer day than the last couple have been. I heard plenty of crickets in the afternoon, too, when I was out in the backyard, but this time I didn't see any. I did see quite a number of other bugs, though.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A wasp. A female with a very intimidating ovipositor. It looks similar to a Backyard Bug of the Day from last week, but it is not the same species.

The backyard seems to have been dominated by Hemiptera today, though:

 Tiny hopper. And by tiny I mean about 1/8 of an inch long. You can't really see those patterns with the naked eye.

 Another hopper

 Leaf bug?

 Showing of those wings

 Stinkbug

 Another stinkbug. I haven't seen one like this in ages - maybe all summer.

 ANOTHER stinkbug - Brown marmorated stinkbug

Other Random Bugs:

 Possibly a robber fly

 Looper caterpillar

 Caterpillar face

 Cranefly

 Beetle

When we got home this evening and came in the backdoor there were a lot of bugs on the back porch, attracted by the light. This was unusual because for weeks, even on nice nights, we have not had a lot of bugs attracted to the porch lights, and because the back porch light never really attracts a lot of bugs. But this time the back porch light attracted:

 One caddisfly...

 ...And about twenty moths.

 Most of the moths seemed to be of this species, whatever it is. This one had its abdomen curved up and was fluttering its wings, which I have always guessed is a mating behavior, trying to attract a mate by spreading pheremones in the air. But that is a total guess, with absolutely no science behind it.

 And there was a lot of fluttering by the light.

 I guess this could be a Porch Light Lepidoptera Lollapalooza - there wasn't a great variety of moths, but there were a lot of this kind, so I guess that's what we had.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 All curled up in a ball, trying to look small. It actually was small.

Haven't seen one of these in a while.