Seasonal Adjustment

In a theoretical sense, I have been aware for a long time that the angle of the sunlight is different during different seasons. But I don't think I ever really appreciated the effects of that until I started trying to take pictures of bugs close-up. When you are outside on a sunny day, trying to take a photograph of a bug without casting a shadow on your subject, you really begin to appreciate how much easier that is to do in the summer, when the sun is higher overhead, than it is in the fall, when it is lower and you often end up creating an eclipse on your specimen by stepping between it and the sun. It requires a whole different way of approaching a photograph. Just another way that taking pictures of bugs has made me more aware of the natural world.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I can't find this in my books (unfortunate, because when I posted this on facebook, I said I would identify it on my blog, and now I have broken my promise), which is puzzling, because I was sure I had found it in there before; this is not my first time seeing this bug. It is the first time I have seen one this color, though, so it is possible it is a different species than I have seen before, if it is not just a color variation. I think it is a leaf beetle. [Edit: I finally found what I was looking for in my books, a leaf beetle, species Sumitrosis inaequalis, but I don't think that's what this is. The colors are so different. They are clearly related, though.]

The morning glories remain popular with bees and flies, but today they were much less cooperative about having their pictures taken (which is saying a lot, because they weren't very cooperative before). This year has been quite surprisingly successful for the morning glories. I didn't think they would get a chance to bloom at all because they started late, but I have never had so many blossoms before.

 What you can't see in this picture is that there is already another bee, a sweat bee, inside this flower. I think it told the bumblebee to buzz off, because it backed out pretty quickly.

 There were quite a few sweat bees today that spent long periods of time inside morning glories.

 Honeybee feeding on a bloom that has closed up.

 

 

Other Bugs:

 Grasshopper

 Squash bug

 Stinkbug

 Stinkbug

 That dark spot is something living inside this leaf.

 Winter firefly

 Fly (I looked this one up a couple of weeks ago, I am not looking it up again tonight. Sadly, all I remember about it is that it lays its eggs in cattle dung).

 Finally! After looking at a million (that is an exaggeration) March flies, and thinking that by some strange occurrence in nature there were no females in my backyard this year, I found a couple. Here's one in an excellent position to show you the difference between the male and female of the species. Note the huge difference in the size of their eyes and heads. Also note that the female's legs are brown, while the male's are black. They were not swarming as much today, a couple of small swarms, but not anything like yesterday. It might be because it was so windy.

 This is the size of a gnat, but it looks like a bee.

 Katydid

 Robber fly

 Woolly aphid

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Six-spotted orb weaver with prey.

 On another leaf, less than a foot away, another, with different coloring.

 As I was walking around my backyard thinking to myself that it was nice that I was not walking through a million spiderwebs today, I walked right into one that was at face height. Now, when I say I walk through spider webs I am talking about single threads across the path, not full orb webs. They are really hard to see. The worst thing is to walk through one at face height, like I did today. But the other unfortunate thing about walking into this web, other than the ironic timing of it, is that it was an amazingly strong web. I had a hard time breaking free of it–I was halfway convinced I was about to be attacked by Shelob. And then it took me a while just to free myself of the thread, which was persistently clinging to me. Here's a bit of it that was stuck to my hand. It's not a nice feeling to be walking around with web strands clinging to you, and it is amazing how well you can feel something so insubstantial. But spider silk is supposedly stronger than steel, in the same proportion.

 The mysterious spider from yesterday, building a new web. This on is building an orb web right across the path. It's very annoying, frankly, because I have to take the long way 'round to avoid breaking it.

 

 Daddy-long-legs on autumn joy sedum