Charm

Without a doubt, there are some insects that are more charismatic than others. Even people who hate bugs will usually make an exception for butterflies; when they say they hate bugs I don't think they are even thinking of butterflies as bugs. There may be people who hate butterflies, I suppose, and I do have one friend who hates bugs, whom when I asked her if that meant butterflies said that no, she didn't hate butterflies, but she didn't think they were all that great, either. I thought that was a bizarre and funny reply–who doesn't think butterflies are beautiful? Well, my friend for one, and chances are there are a few other people among the 7 billion on the planet who feel the same. And there may be people who hate them (or fear them). But lets just say for the sake of the point I am trying to make that as bugs go, butterflies are the ones that get a pass from almost everyone as being the beautiful bugs, the exception to the "EW!" response. There are certainly bugs that I think almost everyone hates, too, even most people who like bugs. I think I have talked about this before, earlier this summer, when I posted a mosquito as Backyard Bug of the Day. It was a beautiful mosquito, and though I knew it would not excite insect admiration from many people I couldn't help seeing how lovely it was.

Well, I am doing it again.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 I am not 100% sure this is a mosquito. It looks like a mosquito, but it's kind of huge. And by huge, I mean those legs are about a half inch long. I looked up mosquitoes in my bug books, but they don't show very many of the almost 200 species of mosquitoes in the US, so it's no surprise I didn't find it. Anyway, it's pretty. [Edit: I now realized that this is the exact same mosquito that I made Backyard Bug of the Day about a month ago. I even said the exact same thing about it, that I was not 100% sure it was a mosquito. Oh well. By the way, it is a mosquito, an elephant mosquito. But if you keep reading this blog you'll find that out in a future post...]

I didn't get any great (or even good) pictures of it, showing how pretty it was, but I did get a couple showing how pretty individual parts are.  Pretty wings...

 Pretty blue... whatever that thing is. And legs.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Some kind of uncooperative hopper nymph

 And now, as a reward for looking at pictures of my pretty mosquito, some more charismatic insects–yes, I have butterflies for you. 2 monarchs eclosed today, both female:

 B1

 Love those curly proboscides butterflies have.

 B2

 B2 was kind of aggressive I would say about wing flapping. She did it with some forceful emphasis. And yet, she didn't fly away off my hand.

 The two of them spent quite some time resting on the tree where I placed them...

... though I eventually spotted B1 on a different leaf, which I assume means she made a very short flight there.

 And later during my bug walk I happened to see that B1 was in the air, flapping around the lawn area of the backyard, and coming to rest on the picnic table umbrella.

 

 Later still she took a more ambitious flight, to the top of a tree. B2, in spite of her vigorous wing flexing when I first brought her outside, waited for hours, and then I didn't see her fly away.

There is one more chrysalis inside, which I think will eclose Wednesday, and I think this last caterpillar is in its final binge before preparing to pupate. I don't know precisely when this caterpillar hatched from its egg, but I know it was sometime between August 19 and 21 (when I was out of town), so it has been a caterpillar for about a month.

Backyard Amphibian of the Day:

For the last couple of days, the goldenrod has definitely been the place to be. Or bee.

 Can you see all 3 insects in this picture?

 It has been mostly bumblebees, a LOT of bumblebees (with some honeybees, but not in this picture)...

 But also other species of wasps...

 ... and flies.

 

 Yeah, I am sure that this caterpillar is getting bigger, I just don't know how. I happened to walk by and take a look at it when I went out to get the mail today, and it was moving–well, the front part of it was moving. It was shifting the front half of its body around a bit, and had straightened out, and seemed to be nibbling on the edge of the leaf. I watched for a while, hoping it would go somewhere, and eventually decided to go inside to get my camera. By the time I came out it was in this position. the only change is that before it had been curled the other direction, with its head resting on the left instead of the right.

 Oak galls, which technically means we are looking indirectly at insects here, because there are tiny wasp larvae inside them.

 Caterpillar making a hiding place out of silk.

 Not a terribly effective hiding place...

 Praying mantis.

 Sharpshooters

 Immature stinkbug

 Same species, about half the size.

I found this little pile of frass in the thicket where I know the snowberry clearwing hummingbird moth laid eggs, and even saw one hatch a few weeks ago. This is the leaf of a raspberry vine, but all around it are honeysuckle vines, which are a host plant of the SCHM caterpillar. I looked all over for a caterpillar, and didn't find one. It is very frustrating to look for a caterpillar and find nothing but frass (and yes, I did just post a picture of caterpillar poop).

Stinkbug of some kind.

 I know you can see the white hickory tussock moth caterpillar, but can you see the spotted apatelodes?

 This is the biggest woolly bear caterpillar I have ever seen in my life.

These are all over the yard now:

 Fall webworm caterpillar. They have left the webs in the crab apple tree, and spread all over the rest of the backyard.

At first I had a hard time finding yesterday's BBotD, the prominent caterpillar...

 ... but once you see it it's really obvious.

 Cricket

When I spotted this at first glance I thought it was a caterpillar. Eventually I started seeing these little feathers all over the place, which means something got eaten. From the feathers I think it was a mourning dove, which didn't bother me because they are my least favorite bird (and I try not to take sides between the predators and the prey), but later when I came upon 4 mourning doves in the garden I felt a little bad about my cavalier attitude. That is, until they did that thing that makes me dislike mourning doves. The thing about mourning doves is that when you get close to them, they fly away, but they don't just take off, the burst into flight, it's like an explosion into the sky. And if you don't know that they are there, like they are in a bush, or hiding under the front porch, it's unpleasantly startling. Even having seen them in the garden, when they decided I was too close and launched themselves with their usual commotion it was startling–and annoying that I didn't get close enough to take a picture. I did feel bad that they were obviously frightened, too, especially the one that briefly got tangled in one of the tomato cages–which wouldn't have happened if they didn't have to overreact to everything that way. Anyway, they are welcome to sit in the garden if they want to, especially if they want to eat the caterpillars on the Brussels sprouts (which, sadly, they don't do, being seed eaters. But there are some weed seeds in there they can have their fill of).

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Jumping spider with leaf hopper prey

 Arrow-shaped micrathena

 Another pretty jumping spider

I took this picture because I liked all of the raindrops (dew?) in the spider web. I didn't see the spider until I looked at the picture on the computer. Bowl and doily spider.