Watching Like a Hawk

The most amazing thing I saw in my backyard today was not a bug.

Backyard Bird of the Day:

 It's a raptor, that's all I know.

 Such a tiny beak. And so mellow; it just sat there on that branch for a good ten minutes while I stood on the back porch watching it and taking pictures. It looked around a lot, totally unconcerned about me standing twenty feet away.

 That's a very flexible neck.

 It could definitely see me, and was not in the least disturbed by my presence.

Here's something that confuses me:

 This is a plant called autumn joy sedum. It's very pretty, and it blooms this time of year, starting out a pale pink, then turning this color, and then turning a browner red. It's just the kind of thing I would expect to see covered with bees, and yet, I never see bees on these flowers. Ever. In fact, they don't seem to attract bugs at all, except for maybe two occasions in the past two years when I saw katydids sitting on them. That's it. Bugs just don't seem to like them, and I have no idea why.

Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 Case bearing caterpillar

 There were a couple of them dangling from the same plant. I know this is deja vu from a post a couple of days ago, but today they are Backyard Bugs of the Day because I got better pictures of them. And I didn't really have a better option.

Random Bugs:

 Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn't get to do my bug walk until the shady part of the afternoon again. I knew there were lots of bugs around today, because earlier in the day when I was standing on the back porch taking pictures of the raptor I saw a lot of them flying around. I think they were mostly craneflies. I saw a lot of them on my bug walk, too, also mostly flying around. But I did find this one resting on a leaf. I like the way it arranges its legs according to the shape of the leaf.

 Brown marmorated stinkbug.

 Looper caterpillar

And another

 There were a lot of bees around when I was on the back porch, but not so many when I actually went out to do my bug walk. Bees definitely prefer the sunny part of the day.

I found this candy striped leaf hopper on the side of the house. It has a damaged elytron, which gives us the rare sight of what it looks like underneath.

You have these moments of insight into your own character sometimes in life, and I had one today where I thought maybe I might be a little weird as I was walking around my backyard and said aloud, "Oh good, a spider." I hadn't found any bugs so far, and was glad to have finally found something, but it occurs to me that that is perhaps an unusual reaction to finding spiders. Well, you have to be who you are.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 But then, who wouldn't be thrilled to find this? For a backyard spider, it's pretty big.

 Tiny jumping spider

 Still waiting for a hug...

There is a blurry caterpillar near the bottom of the picture. But this is a spider picture, and there's a spider lurking amid the flowers. I wonder if the caterpillar is in danger...