The air was full of bits of fluff today, which isn't such an unusual state of affairs. There are several trees that broadcast their seeds this way, and when those trees go to seed you see lots of cottony wisps floating around. And then there are many flowers like dandelions that also spread their seeds on the wind. So floating fluff is a common sight in the backyard, but today's fluff wasn't floating, it was flying. I noticed that it was not following haplessly where the wind chose to blow, but directing its own flight. When I got close enough, I could see that the fluff had wings. So the fluff is one of today's Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day.
Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:
Woolly aphid. I see these every year in my backyard, and I have even seen them flying on occasion, but today was the first time I have ever seen so many of them flying at once. Of course, I am probably giving you an erroneous impression of how many there were - I did not have clouds of aphids flying around. There were maybe 20. But that is what made them interesting to me today - in the past I would see one flying, never more than that. The other thing about these flying aphids today was that I never saw any of them land anywhere.
I would like to mention at this point that I didn't actually get any
good pictures of them. But the badness of the pictures is comical to me, so I am posting them.
So, none of these pictures are good, but some of them are kind of cute anyway...
There's two here...
Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:
I am making this a Co-Bug of the Day because this might be a new species for me. I am not sure. I think it is another species of grass bug or meadow bug. Hemiptera, anyway.
Today was a very buggy day in the backyard, and it only rained for a couple of minutes (during my bug walk, of course. While the sun was shining! No rainbow, though, the sun was too high), so I have lot to show you. Random Bugs:
I used to know what this was called...
Remember yesterday I posted a picture of something that at the time I saw it I was not sure if it was a bug or just a speck of something? Well, it was an insect...
A weevil.
There were several of them on the same plant today where I saw the one yesterday.
Looper. This was a tiny one, maybe a quarter inch long. Here it is dangling from a thread...
... and here it has climbed the thread up to the tree branch.
Another caterpillar.
This one was on a leaf, under a sort of web of silk.
I don't know what's going on here. My two guesses would be mating or predation. Or for a third guess, parasitising - laying eggs in an unwilling host, which I guess is still a form of predation, but sort of a long term version. Based on how different these two look, as in, not the same species of insect, they are probably not mating.
I found another little cocoon on the same tree as before, and with this one you can clearly see that there is something inside.
Hopper nymph. They looks so annoyed sometimes...
Assassin nymph
I saw quite a few honeybees on the milkweed flowers today.
And a small milkweed bug. I wish that all of the insects that are specific to the milkweed plant were colors that looked better with the flowers. They all seem to be a kind of orangey red, which I don't think looks nice with the pink.
Ladybeetle (also on milkweed, which gained a bit in popularity today.
Different species of ladybeetle on a different plant
Another bee...
... and another.
I can't tell if this bug is eating a shriveled up caterpillar or bird droppings.
Arachnid Appreciation:
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