A Different Day

Today was not a repeat of yesterday. I did not see the same feeding frenzy when I looked out the window. There were no chipmunks scurrying up the oak tree. There were no flocks of birds rustling the leaves of the dogwood. As for the latter, when I went for my bug walk I realized why: there are almost no berries left on the tree. Yesterday's feasting must have just about cleared it out. I realize that I had very lucky timing yesterday, looking out the window when I did.

Today was about ten degrees cooler than yesterday, too. I don't know if that is why I found fewer bugs today, but it was quite a contrast to yesterday's warmth.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 These smaller craneflies were suddenly ubiquitous today.

Random Bugs:

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar on the move

And one staying very still

 An unusual view of a cricket

 Moths

There were a lot of wasps around today:

 

 

 Wasps have a reputation for being mean and aggressive, which they don't, as a whole, deserve. Yes, there are some aggressive species. But there are many species that don't even have stingers. And even among those that do, look how close I came to this wasp, and it didn't do anything to me. In the end, I am the one that scared it away. Wasps sting in defense, and even when it felt it was in danger, its first response was to flee. I have been stung by wasps several times in my life (though not during photography), but watching them and reading about them has taught me not to fear them. They are just animals trying to survive, just like everything else.

 

 Fly

 Moth

 Looper caterpillar

 A pair of grasshoppers. They seem very cuddly

 I took this picture later, with my pocket camera. They were still attached, but not so cuddly.

 Assassin bug

 There were a lot of bumblebees around today, too.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I spotted this jumping spider, and it was in an awkward place for me to get a picture, but I took this one anyway. And as I was looking at it through the camera, I could see that it had some prey in its grip. It was also moving its pedipalps up and down, kind of waving them. I have no idea what that was all about.

 I thought that its prey looked a bit like a spider...

 Yes indeed, that is a smaller jumping spider.

These next two spiders were neighbors, living on the same board of the stile:

 Quite a large crab spider by my backyard's standards. That "wingspan" had to be close to an inch across.

This one was almost as big, I think.