Specks

When I'm trying to find bugs in my backyard, there are a fair number of them that are pretty obvious, with bright colors that stand out, and others that are less obvious because they blend in with the background really well, even though they might be quite large. And then there are some like today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 I don't know what this is. But it's small. How small?

That dot near the edge of the leaf is the bug, not the one by my finger. When you look at it up close, as with the macro lens, it's a pretty brightly colored bug. If it was bigger, it would stand out and be really obvious against a green leaf. But at that size, it's just a speck of something. So how did I find it? When I see specks, I often give them a closer look just because they might be something pretty amazing if you look at them up close. Sure, a lot of them are nothing much. But sometimes they end up being a tiny, amazing bug. And that right there is the answer to the question I get a lot: "How do you find these things?" I look for them.

Even looking at its face I get no sense of what kind of insect this is, though it does not look like a Hemiptera. It is possible that this is a nymph or larva stage of something.

I thought it might be a mite of some kind, but zoomed in it looks like it has six legs, not eight, so that would make it an insect.

Funny thing is, I found the Backyard Bug of the Day because I was looking at another tiny, hard to see insect, this itty-bitty looper caterpillar. The BBotD was on the next leaf over and caught my eye, wondering if it was an insect or just a bit of plant debris.

And on ANOTHER nearby leaf was this tiny beetle. That tree had quite the population of tiny things on it.

The Japanese knotweed continues to be an insect haven, so of course there must be predators to eat the things that land there:

Jagged ambush bug lurking among the flowers.

The Japanese knotweed is very popular with flies of many species, including this brightly colored specimen.

More tiny insects: beetles on autumn joy sedum.

And aaaaaaaaaaaaall over the backyard are tiny crickets. This one is a female.

Male. Not sure if all of the tiny crickets I saw were the same species. I must have seen at least 50 of them, all over the backyard. And I could definitely hear them.

Two species of crickets on the side of the house.

The bigger of those two

A few white hickory tussock moth caterpillars getting cozy together

Lacebug

Crane fly

There are four leaf-footed bugs in this picture; can you see them all?

Stinkbug

Damselfly

The mushroom has continued to grow and change.

Today I began to wonder if this caterpillar perhaps feeds at night, and that is why I never see it doing anything other than sitting in this corner of this leaf...

... so I went out at night to check on it. It had changed position, but was still sitting in the same spot, doing nothing.

Hide and seek?

Finally, a picture showing how popular the back porch tree is, with the three insects that mostly populate it: wasps, ants, and ladybeetles. There are also a lot of aphids (which is why the ants and ladybeetles are there) but they are on the undersides of the leaves. There are about 3 more wasps just outside the boundaries of this picture.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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There were some pretty tiny spiders today, too. It could be a spiderling, though, as opposed to a small species.

I think this is a jumping spider spiderling.

This flower crab spider was quite aggressive when I tried to take its picture.

It was ready to take me on.

I wonder if there is a correlation between its aggressive personality and its missing front leg.

The marble orb weaver caught a weevil.