See Ya Later!

Announcement time: This blog is going on hiatus for a couple of weeks, because I am going to be about 3,000 miles away from my backyard and I don't have a camera lens that lets me take pictures from that far away. It's not an opportune season for leaving my backyard, with so many things coming into bloom, but it is an opportune season for traveling. I am not leaving my backyard bereft, there will be someone here to keep it company, but he won't be taking bug pictures or blogging, so it will be a mystery to you and me what is going on back there. On the bright side (for me), I will be missing over two weeks of the gypsy moth scourge. Unfortunately, I will be back when they are all huge and creepy (unless it rains a lot for the next two weeks and they all die. Doing my rain dance...).

I did a bug walk this morning so that I could post a blog before I leave this afternoon, but unfortunately, the temperature got down into the 30s last night, and still hasn't quite made it to 60, so the bugs were very reluctant to make an appearance. However, I did see 3 species of butterflies, only two of which were repeats from yesterday, and one let me take some not-close-enough pictures, so... what can I say, it's a beautiful day in my backyard right now, and I will be sad to leave it (but not as sad as I am about leaving the person who will be taking care of it. Sniffle).

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Leaf hopper

Gah! I am sitting her on my couch loading pictures and I found a gypsy moth caterpillar crawling up my leg!

 I have seen this kind of tiny beetle before, but as is the case with many bugs, not only do I not know what it's called, I know almost nothing about its way of life. Except that today, while I was looking at it, it suddenly turned around and grabbed something even smaller than itself to eat. So, now I know if eats tiny bugs...

 You can see the tiny whatever-it-is sticking out of its mouth.

 Spring azure butterfly

 Moth on the porch

Arachnid Appreciation:
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It would appear that spiders are not interested in eating gypsy moth caterpillars. I spotted this one right next to one, and it completely ignored it.