The Bugs in the Backyard: Is Winter Coming?

This is the time of year when we start to hear news reports of meteorologists and others guessing what kind of winter we're going to have. So far I have heard it is going to be colder than normal, warmer than normal, have a lot of snow, have very little snow... You get the idea. It's not the kind of thing you can easily believe in, forecasts of such long range, because very often forecasts for an hour from now are completely wrong. All I can say is, if the winter is like the autumn, it will be hot and dry. I, of course, wonder how this unusual weather we are having is affecting the bugs in my backyard, which you would think that I would know just from the fact that I have been "studying" them for five years, but since I can't even detect trends from day to day, I am certainly not able to judge. I know that there are a lot of bugs that I should be seeing that I am not (not a single dagger moth this year), but the fact that there are flowers in my backyard still means that at least the bees have something to eat, and so I am seeing a lot of those every day. Funny thing, though, is that most days lately I can stand in front of the morning glories and see a lot of bugs–mostly bees, but others, too–and I can walk around the rest of the backyard and see almost nothing. But it's October, so surely that's not weird. But it's warm, we haven't even had a freeze yet. Any insect that is going by the weather to decide if it's time to go into a cozy place to wait out the snow won't have gotten that signal. So... I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine (unless you're an entomologist, in which case you probably know what should be going on in my backyard, but why would an entomologist read this blog?).

Backyard Bug of the Day:

This little wasp wandered all over the morning glory vines. It didn't go to any of the flowers, it just walked all over the vines.

I ate my (very late) breakfast at the picnic table today, and of course I brought my camera outside with me, just in case. I was rewarded for that effort when something lovely and photogenic happened...

A butterfly appeared! And it landed on the morning glories! How perfectly beautiful! Unfortunately, I failed to get any good pictures of it. It was not one of those butterflies (how rare they are!) that would sit still and pose.

It is a clouded sulphur butterfly, a rarity in my backyard, but the second one I have seen in about the last month.

This is a wonderful insect that looks just like a flying clod of dirt. I think it is a species of leaf beetle.

Squash bug

Grasshopper

Assassin bug nymph. Curious thing about these assassin bugs: I see the nymphs all the time, all summer long, and even lately I see quite a few every day (which I don't bother to photograph, in part because it's hard to get a decent picture of one), but I almost never see an adult of the species, in any season. You'd think I'd have to see an occasional adult, given that there are so many nymphs around, but I don't think I see even one per year. There's never a point when all of a sudden all the nymphs have become imagos (adults). Strange.