Listening

I went outside for some sky time this evening, even though it is overcast. It's never really fully dark out there, especially when it's overcast, so once your eyes acclimate to the darkness, it is possible to see fairly well. Not enough to read by, but I could walk around the paths without much trouble, I think. Mostly I can see silhouettes against the sky, but there are things that stand out, like the white flowers on the dogwood tree. I saw an animal come from around the side of the house, though I could not see well enough to see what kind of animal it was - from what I saw, and how it moved, it could have been one of several different things, but by the time I reached inside the back door and turned on the porch light, it had scurried into the bramble thicket, because I am so frightening. I think I could smell flowers, but I am never sure about my sense of smell - it is not acute, even by human standards. It is probably me least useful sense. What I focus on the most, though, when I am enjoying sky time on a night without stars, is my sense of hearing. I was listening for crickets. Since I saw one the other day, I thought maybe I would be able to hear them, but I couldn't. Way off in the distance I could hear frogs singing (not in a Kermit, Rainbow Connection kind of way, but peep peep peeping), I could hear animals rustling through the leaf litter in the woods, and I could hear an owl from afar (which either moved somewhere else or was answered by another owl, as the sound changed to a different point of origin), but I didn't hear any crickets. I realize that I don't have any idea at what point in the year crickets become part of the nighttime soundtrack. Yes, I hear them in the summer, but they must start at some point, and I don't know when that point is - not that it is the same every year, I am sure, but there must be a general time when the crickets come out to chirp.

Of course, the daytime sounds lately are mostly of lawnmowers.

I didn't find a huge number of bugs, but there was some variety and I found a few that I have not seen so far this year, so it's adding to the scope for the season as a whole.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

A beautiful, blue(ish) beetle

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 This is a treehopper, I think a species called Publilia concava, but I am not sure of that.

Head-on view

Today was one of those days when I knew there had to be bugs around outside because I could see them from the windows. Here's one that I spotted from the kitchen, that was kind enough to stick around while I went and got my camera and went outside:

 Carpenter bee chewing up the bird feeder post

 Caterpillar - I wanted to knock that frass off the leaf, but I didn't want the caterpillar to decide to drop off the leaf, so I decided not to disturb it, and just take the picture with the frass.

 Weevil

 Honeysuckle borer

 Caterpillar that just fits into the groove of the bark. It's smaller than it probably appears in this picture - about half an inch long. I have no idea which end is the front, and which end is the back.

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Crab spider, missing 25% of its legs.

 You can see where the legs used to be attached.