A Variety of Things

Today was the buggiest day in the backyard in a while, so I have a lot of pictures for you (mostly of bees and wasps), and not a lot of time for blogging tonight, so I think I am just going to mostly post things in the order I took the pictures, instead of trying to group things and make sense about them. Except for the spiders, of course, which will go at the end, and the Backyard Bug of the Day, which will go at the beginning.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 It looks like a cross between a cricket and a drinking straw, but I looked up crickets and related things and didn't find it. I did some more looking in the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, and I think it is a stonefly.

Random Bugs:

 Most of the dandelions had bees or other bugs on them today, and there are a lot of dandelions now. There are three insects on this one.

Man, this bee is COVERED in pollen.

 Fierce face

 Let's zoom in on that face...

 After doing its work on the flower, the bee dropped onto the grass and crawled/flew around a bit before flying away. I don't know why.

 It's not just bees and wasps on the dandelions today...

 I think this is some kind of Hemiptera, but I didn't see the mouth parts, so I don't know.

 Stink bug

 Click beetle

Lots of winter fireflies around today...

 I saw a lot of flies. This is the only one that sat still for me.

This bee was resting on the leaf of a tree.

 I spotted two of these wasps on the stem of a dandelion. They climbed onto the top of the flower...

 ... and then flew to the ground and burrowed under the grass.

I have pictures from two fear-inducing categories today, spiders, and something else (you can probably guess what). I have been debating which is creepier, because I will put that one last, but I am not sure which would generally be considered creepier. However, I am going to go by which one creeps me out, which will now be posted after the spider.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I spotted some movement on the ground near my feet, and could tell from the way the creature was moving that it was an insect dragging another insect. Obviously, I assumed it was an ant carrying something, but when I looked closer I saw that there was no ant, there was a wasp and a spider.

 At first glance I thought the spider was carrying the wasp, but I soon realized that it was the other way around. Now, there are several species of parasitic wasps, and what some of them do is kill (or at least incapacitate) their prey and bring it back to their underground nest/burrow. They leave it there for their young to feed on - I think usually they have a separate hole in the ground for each larva, and will bring prey back for each one. I never would have thought that they would prey on spiders. Also, as I watched it drag the spider along, I soon realized that the spider was still alive - its legs moved a little bit, but it didn't fight back or struggle. I think that the wasp had envenomated it, and it was under the effects of its poison.

 Unfortunately, in observing them I spooked the wasp and it flew away. I don't know if the spider could recover from the wasp's venom, or if I just wasted the wasp's prey and the spider will die anyway for nothing - well, not nothing, something else will eat it. But I don't like to interfere in the ways of nature, and I feel bad about it.

 The spider was moving a bit, at least. Maybe not being fed to a wasp larva will allow it to recover.

Oops, wrong picture file... Well, this will be a buffer before the next creepy thing...

Remember yesterday when I speculated that there might be snakes in the leaf litter?

 There are snakes in the leaf litter.

 I am basically afraid of snakes, and when I saw this one near my feet, I was startled and had an itsy-bitsy freak-out. Which is to say, I think I yelped and hopped a bit. Just a bit. Of course, the snake was more afraid of me.

 The snake fled. I followed. So I guess we know who is more afraid of whom. And that is as it should be, at least with this snake. It is not venomous, and though it could give me an infection if it bit me, its mouth being full of bacteria, as mouths tend to be, it would be very unlikely to bite me unless I did something terribly aggressive towards it while it had no opportunity to flee. But of the two of us, I am the much more dangerous animal.