The Irony of a Merciful Act

Last night I was doing a crossword puzzle in bed and a spider scurried by. My first reaction, I am sorry to say, was to swat it with my crossword puzzle. I missed, which I glad about, because I don't like to kill spiders, it's not how I think spiders should be treated, but also because I don't want a dead spider squished into my bed. We had just changed the sheets the day before. Anyway, like I said, I missed, which then meant that there was a spider loose in the bed. Under the circumstances I think I remained remarkably calm. Yes, I know what you're thinking, that I am a hypocrite, because I keep saying that I like spiders, and then I tried to kill one and was freaking out about it (and I mean freaking out in the absolute mildest terms), but come on. Yes. I like spiders. I think they're cool. I think they're beautiful sometimes. I love what they do (eat annoying bugs). But I don't love them in my bed. My husband was awakened by this mild commotion, and he said he saw where the spider went, and it was over the side in his direction, so fine. I went back to my crossword puzzle. But the spider came back. This time I didn't try to squish it, I tried to catch it with a tissue (I didn't feel like going downstairs to get the bug vacuum). Again I missed, but this time it went over the edge of the mattress on my side and I lost it. This was distressing. There is no way I would be able to sleep knowing there was a spider that at any moment might crawl back into bed with me. Or into my ears. Or mouth. Or anywhere, really. Fortunately, it reappeared, and this time it scurried from the bed onto the wall, and I was able to catch it with the tissue, and relocated it outside. All was well. I went back to my crossword puzzle. Then I saw a gnat buzzing by the lamp, and thought, "Drat. If the spider was still here, it could have eaten that annoying bug."

It was ferociously windy today and darkly overcast, which made finding and photographing bugs difficult. I found a few, but wasn't satisfied, so I turned on the porch light in the evening, just to see what might show up. Overall the porch light has not been attracting many bugs all year, which is puzzling and disappointing, and tonight it didn't attract much, but I did find the Backyard Bug of the Day there.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Brown lacewing. The tiniest one I have ever seen. [Edit: I just checked and apparently I have already had a brown lacewing as Backyard Bug of the Day this year. However, I think this might be a different species, because its wings seem to be shaped differently, and I don't really have another option so... I'm letting it stand. ]

If you've never seen morning glory flowers you possibly don't know what I was talking about yesterday when I was saying that the flowers close up and trap insects inside. So here's what they look like:

 Depending on factors I am not sure about (but I suspect sunshine and temperature), a morning glory flower will bloom for one, maybe two days. It opens sometimes even before it gets light in the morning, and through the course of its bloom will change color (at least the ones I have do; I don't know if all varieties do this) and the broad outer edge of the petal will begin to fold and curl inward. Eventually it looks like this.

 And this is where the opening was, all closed up tight.

Out of curiosity, today I went outside and broke open the flower where yesterday's Backyard Bug of the Day was when I last saw it, and out crawled...

 ... yesterday's Backyard Bug of the Day. As I had expected, it was closed up inside the flower. Now, I don't know if it would have been able to get out...

 ... but I found this bloom with a hole in it, and inside I could see an insect. I opened this one, too, and out came a sweat bee. I am sure there were other blooms that also contained insects, but I didn't open them all.

 During a miraculously non-windy moment I got this shot of two sweat bees deciding whether or not to go back into the flower. One went in, the other flew away. This flower is in the curling-up stage.

 The spotted cucumber beetle didn't get trapped last night. Unless this is another spotted cucumber beetle, and not the one that was hanging around the flowers yesterday. Not all of the flowers curled up.

 Most of the flowers that didn't curl up were shredded by the wind. A gnat photobombed my picture of this one.

Other Bugs:

 Still March flies sitting around. It was probably too windy for swarming today.

 Lady beetle

 I think this is a poplar leaf aphid.

 One of those currently ubiquitous beetles. It might be a species of checkered beetle.

 Cricket

 Ants with aphids.

 I couldn't find this in my book, so I don't know if it's an assassin bug or a leaf bug, but it's a Hemiptera.

Earwig