The Bugs in the Backyard: At Long Last

Today was the greatest day in the backyard in a long time. It started when I walked out the back door and was sitting on the back porch steps putting on my shoes so I could mow the lawn. I always bring my camera outside with me when I mow the lawn, because you never know what you're going to see, so I had it to hand when a bug buzzed past me and landed on the tree that is growing through the pack porch. I thought it was pretty funny that yesterday all I had to do to find the Backyard Bug of the Day was walk out to the driveway, and then today all I had to do was walk out the door and a pretty good BBotD candidate presented itself:

Green lacewing. Not a great shot, though, because it landed on a leaf that was a bit too high over my head. Still, could have been Backyard Bug of the Day if nothing better presented itself, and then it would be funny (to me) that I didn't have to even step foot off the porch to find one, much less do a bug walk.

As I was mowing the lawn, I had to mow around a bunch of milkweed plants that are growing in the middle of the lawn or in the middle of paths. I have a fair amount of milkweed growing in the backyard this year, and as I was carefully avoiding running down a plant in the middle of the path I found myself getting annoyed about it. Why was I bothering to be so generous to these plants? They barely flowered this year–in fact, most of them didn't, and those that did had kind of lackluster bunches of flowers. I have been supporting the milkweed for years because it is the host plant of the monarch butterfly, and they are in trouble, but today as I was mowing, I just decided I was sick of this. I haven't even seen a monarch butterfly in my backyard in at least 2 years, so what is even the point? Well, I didn't run over the plant, and after mowing the lawn, when I was doing my bug walk, I found Backyard Co-Bug of the Day on the very same milkweed that I so resentfully considered mowing down:

A monarch caterpillar!!!! It's about a half inch long right now, so I am guessing second instar? I am so excited! I have adopted it, of course, because it's survival chances in the wilds of the backyard are not statistically great. In this picture you can see the "milk" of the milkweed leaf, which is toxic, but not to the monarch caterpillar. The caterpillar itself becomes toxic from eating it, but that is not perfect protection from predators.

So, as I continued by bug walk after finding the monarch caterpillar, I smiled at the thought that it didn't really matter what else I found, because I already had my BBotD for today all set. On most days I figure out what will be the BBotD while I am still out there looking for bugs. If I find something new, or rare (as the monarch caterpillar is in my backyard), as long as I have a decent picture, it's pretty much a shoo-in. I didn't expect to find anything else of equal awesomeness today.

Then I found Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

I don't know what kind of beetle this is, but it's massive. It is possible I have seen one before, because I have sometimes seen huge beetles, but I don't know beetles enough to know if this huge, black beetle is the same or different from other huge, black beetles I have seen before. However, it's the first one I have seen in a pretty long while, so it gets to be Co-Bug with the monarch caterpillar.

Size reference. Believe it or not, I saw a bigger beetle on my window screen this evening, but I didn't get a picture of it. It flew away too fast. Still, this one is amazing. Notice it has a damaged elytron.

Back on the subject of green lacewings... You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a bundle of insect eggs dangling from the back porch light. Well, today they hatched! And inside were green lacewing larvae. Interesting timing, too–remember the Backyard Bug of the Day from a couple of days ago that was a larva with a big ball of fluff on its back? That's what this is:

This is so tiny you cannot tell what it is with the naked eye. I would guess that the eggs are between 1 and 2mm long.

And on the subject of eyes...

I found this bee snuggled up among the flowers.

It was moving its mandibles back and forth, opening and closing them. I don't know why.

It stayed there for quite some time doing this.

I would say 99% of my sightings of this species of bee over the years has been on these flowers. Today there were quite. few of them–there are two in this picture if you look carefully.

Back on the subject of eyes:

Long-legged fly

They like the pink flowers, too.

Notwithstanding the green lacewing I found on the back porch, I wasn't really expecting to find much when I did my bug walk, because I didn't see a lot of bugs while I was mowing the lawn. And then when it took me a while to find anything, I was convinced that it would be a dud of a bug day. I was wrong. Look at all these random bugs!

Robber fly that has caught another fly

Still trying to get a good picture of the red-headed ash borers. They move really fast, and occasionally there's a bit of chaos with these insects.

Beetle larvae

A couple of bugs on grass seeds...

This was a candidate for Backyard Bug of the Day...

There's two insects here.

The beetles in the backyard today ran the size gamut from huge (as the BBotD and the one on the window) to this tiny thing.

Looper

Lots of loopers on the black-eyed Susans today.

Another irony today: as I started my bug walk I reflected on the fact that I have not been seeing a lot of caterpillars lately, aside from the loopers I've been seeing on the black-eyed Susans. Then not only did I find my first monarch caterpillar in years, but I found this:

White hickory tussock moth caterpillar. I don't think I have ever seen one this early in the summer, but I don't usually see them this small, either.

Tiny moth

Assassin bug nymph, or stilt bug nymph?

Jagged ambush bug

Three bugs here...

This one took off (hopped? I can't tell, but I don't think it has fully developed wings yet), and...

... some of the fluff came wafting down.

Beetle

Katydid

Katydids almost always look annoyed.

Here's something I've never seen before–I don't mean this species, because I have seen these lots of times. It's a katydid nymph. What I have never seen is this stage of its life. I have seen them younger/smaller, and I have seen adults, but it struck me a couple of months ago that I have never seen any middle stages, and here it is. It's missing one of its rear legs.