Yo-yoing

Hello again. Sorry for the lack of blog for the last couple of days, but it's been raining, so I couldn't go outside with my camera to take pictures. I doubt I would have found any bugs anyway. It was rather cold; we topped out at 50ºF both Friday and Saturday, and in both cases we were only at that high for a short time before the temperature went back down into the forties. It's just the kind of thing that I hate - we went from temps in the 80s to temps in the 40s over the space of two days. That's too fast a drop. I can't acclimate at that rate. Still, there were bugs out there, because I could hear crickets. Not many crickets, not like most days when there is a grand chorus throughout the yard. I could actually pinpoint that there were two singing yesterday, probably of different species - I couldn't take my camera out, but I had to go out to get the newspaper, so I did step outside for a few minutes. Today was back in the low 60s, though, and the sun was out, so I was, too, with my camera. It's been crazy windy for days, and in spite of the change in temperature and other aspects of the weather, today was just as windy. And our grand total of rain for the last couple of days is about 3.5 inches. Almost a month's worth in a couple of days. We needed it, that's for sure. And I am NOT going to complain about it (but I will complain that it got so cold. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh), especially not when parts of South Carolina got 2 FEET of rain this weekend. That is a deluge that I can't even fathom.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A grasshopper. Quite a small one, and it looks like it's grandparents were a grasshopper, a toad, and a rock. Which I know only makes three grandparents, so probably two of them were grasshoppers. I don't think I have ever seen this species of grasshopper before.

Random Bugs:

 Today I saw mostly flies and bees. This is a fly.

Most of the bees I saw today were bumblebees, but I saw this one, too:

 I didn't see any honeybees today. There were so many of them the last couple of weeks, and now... none.

 Stilt-legged whatever

 Assassin bug

 Here's a view I haven't had in a while - a white hickory tussock moth caterpillar eating:

 Usually I see them completely still on tree trunks. Occasionally with evidence of a recent molt.

 Caterpillar Close-Up

 I thought these were just debris caught in spider threads at first, but I decided to look closer, and realized that they are case bearing caterpillars. Really tiny ones. There were several hanging from the goldenrod.

 Looper caterpillar

 Assassin bug

 Here's a zoomed-in look at the assassin bug's antennae. I have never noticed them before - they are quite interesting. They look like tv antennae.

 Fly

 Wasp

 Here's a zoomed-in look at that beautiful face.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.