Blue Sky

I have no data to back this up, but I think that on clear days in October, the sky is bluer than at any other time of year. October skies make my heart soar. It was soaring today.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

A beetle. Another new species for me. I couldn't find it in the book, but it most resembles the leaf beetles, not that that means anything. It is on a milkweed plant. I only got two pictures of it, one that was completely out of focus, and this one. Then when I tried to get closer, and get a better angle, it pulled that classic beetle disappearing act where it tumbled off the leaf and vanished into the leaf litter and grass below.

Random Bugs:

 Looks like a bee, but it's a fly

 No idea, but I like the fuzzy wings.

This is an unusual place to find an ambush bug. Usually they hide among flowers, particularly flowers of a similar color.

 Ladybeetle. It looks unwell.

 Flies

 Male tree cricket

 I like finding bugs of different kinds feeding on the same plant together.

 Milkweed bug feeding on milkweed seeds.

 So often you see an assassin bug patiently waiting, and some other insect lands nearby... and never gets close enough to the assassin bug to be grabbed. I wonder if they see the assassin bug and avoid it, or if it's just happenstance.

 Lady beetle

 March fly?

 Assassin bug

 I was very intent on taking a picture of this small copper butterfly, and didn't notice all of the other insects in the shot. I saw them when I looked at it on the computer. Can you see them?

 Here's a zoomed-in look - even the magnifier tool wouldn't show all of this.

 I know that ants communicate with each other by touching antennae, but these two seemed to be doing something else - more like a shoving contest.

Sweat bee

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Jumping spider

 Flower crab spider dangling for prey

Remember a picture up above where there was an ambush bug and a bumblebee on a goldenrod plant? There was something else visible in that picture that I didn't point out. Here it is: crab spider with prey