Blur

I didn't take any really good pictures today, so I'll share with you the best of the 200 bad pictures I took of bugs. Maybe after the ten days of rain that are forecast are finished we will have some sunshine, and I can take pictures with a faster shutter speed, and they will be better. Until then... lots of gloomy, blurry pictures coming up.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of flower long-horn beetle, I think. Absolutely covered in pollen.

 Here's the only one I saw that was not covered in pollen.

 Well, this one isn't covered... yet.

There were quite a number of these beetles on this bush, and even though there are plenty of flowers to go around, they were a little bit hostile to each other.

What else was out there today?

 No idea what this is.

 A lot of moths flitting about today. This one flitted in front of me and landed on the grass.

 Some pretty good camouflage... but not perfect, because I saw it.

Here's a closer look.

 Caterpillar

 Some kind of beetle

 

 And some kind of Hemiptera

A few moths were attracted to the back porch light:

 There were several of these, a couple of them kind of agitated and flying around my head.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Do you see the spider? I admit, I only saw this one because it was climbing a thread between branches, and even then, I couldn't really believe what I was seeing...

 

 A green spider! And so small.

Pretty, Little Things

All I'm going to say is that if I don't get some sunshine soon I am going to implode.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This appears to be the nymph of some kind of hopper, but I can't be sure. I can't look it up, either, because the books don't tend to show nymphs. But it's pretty. And tiny.

And speaking of pretty and tiny...

 I was taking pictures of these pretty purple daisies and found the teeniest grasshopper nymph I have ever seen.

But there was something much smaller on the daisies...

This is the kind of thing that I only see because it moves. Not that I am like the T-rex in Jurassic Park or anything.

 Beetle

 Danger lurking on the next leaf... Assassin bug and march fly.

 This assassin bug caught something.

 Another assassin bug. These are suddenly all over. I have seen this species on occasion before, but this is a lot for my backyard. There are other species of assassin bugs that are usually more common for my backyard.

 Some kind of geometer moth hiding out

 Hover fly

 Weevils

 This appears to be a case moth caterpillar's case glued onto a leaf with silk, which I presume would mean that the caterpillar is pupating in there.

 Crane flies

 Lady beetle

 Wasp. I have seen a fair few wasps around lately, but strangely, almost no bees. I'll bet I'd see more bees if the sun would come out...

Arachnid Appreciation:
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You don't often see spiders looking like they have so much joie de vivre.

I'm not sure what's going on here, but this could be a female (left) and male of the same species. Sometimes with spiders there is a great deal of sexual dimorphism.

Late Night at the Light

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday; I went out for the day in the morning and didn't get home until dark. I put on the porch light to try to attract bugs, but all that came by were a few non-descript, beige moths that did not want to sit still to have their picture taken. Until after midnight, that is, when there were more interesting and cooperative moths, but that made them bugs for today. It's a good thing, too, because it rained all day today, so I couldn't do a bug walk (and yet I was greeted the moment I walked out the door to go get the newspaper by a gypsy moth caterpillar dangling from the roof of the porch. Blech).

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I think this is a tiger moth, possibly a harnessed tiger moth. If you look at where the wings come together you get a hint of the fact that it is a bit more colorful on its underwings.

 You may remember this one from a couple of days ago, when it was on the screen of the door all day. There were at least seven of them on the porch last night.

 This one had its wings spread, showing its delicate underwings.

 It might be a spotted tussock moth, but it doesn't look enough like the picture in my book for me to think that is a good identification.

 No idea what this one is.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Ick

We had a drought for about the last two years, which I lamented for a number of reasons, including the fact that it appeared to me that there were fewer bugs in my backyard as a result of the unusually dry months. Another important factor of the drought was that it contributed to the gypsy moth outbreak, according to scientists. So you would think that this wet spring would make me happy, after all that complaining. And I am happy that we are getting so much rain (for now. This could end up very dreary at some point, and there is such a thing as too much of a good thing). But there are definitely drawbacks. The wet weather this spring has been the cause of a horrible infestation of ticks (according to scientists. But I swear that every year, no matter what kind of weather we have, scientists say, "This is going to be a very bad year for ticks." By which they mean, it will be a great year for the ticks, and a bad year for everyone who wants to go outside and not be bitten by them). And when I was outside today, I was getting bitten constantly by mosquitoes, which come along with wet weather. And then there's the gypsy moth caterpillars, which were supposed to be killed off by that fungus that was allegedly going to thrive if we had a lot of rain in May, and, well, it hasn't. There are still SO MANY gypsy moth caterpillars in my backyard, thriving, and chowing down on my trees. I wore my lawn mowing hat today while I did my bug walk, because I could hear the frass (caterpillar poop) raining down from the trees (my lawn furniture is covered with it), and there were so many of the vile creatures descending from the trees on their silk threads. THAT is exactly what freaked my out when this happened back in the early 1980s and I declared that I was never going outside again. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes people hate bugs. Those three things right there, ticks, mosquitoes, and gypsy moth caterpillars form a trio of ick that makes it horrible to be outside right now.

Except it's still beautiful outside. There's just a lot of ickiness you have to be dodging while you're out there right now.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Pretty little gnat

Other Bugs:

 Some kind of Hemiptera nymph

 Tiny beetle

 Rove beetle?

 Every year I see these tiny flies doing some kind of semaphore routine with their wings. Today I saw several of them together doing it, and scrapping with each other. I assume this is all mating behavior.

 Assassin bug

 Crane fly

 Hover fly

 Another tiny gnat/fly

 Moth

 And speaking of moths that look like bird droppings...

 Weevil

 Squash bug, or leaf footed bug?

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider

Crab spider