So Many Nymphs

There's not much to say about the backyard today. I didn't find a lot of bugs (other than bees on milkweed. A lot of bees). I don't know why. I wasn't even sure I had anything for a Backyard Bug of the Day, but I was able to choose something.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Tiny assassin bug nymph

Some of the tubes in the mason bee house are showing signs of occupation, and I saw a wasp with a HUGE ovipositor crawl into one (I didn't see her come out), and I happened to catch the moment one came out:

The caterpillar I have been watching every day finished eating all of the flowers off of this plant (this is just one stem of it):

 I looked all over the plant and could not find it...

 ... because it had moved on to another plant, and has started eating those flowers. I did try to look this up today, and did not come up with an id. The closest guess is the asteroid caterpillar, but the coloring is nothing like the book. The book does say that the colors vary, but does not describe this coloring. So I don't know. Can you spot the aphid as well?

 Derbid planthopper, Ceduca maculata, perhaps.

 Stinkbug nymph

 Check out the rabbit's neck...

 Engorged ticks. Yuck.

 Bumblebee and honey bee on milkweed

 Some kind of hopper nymph and a springtail

 Hopper nymphs

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This spider has been sitting on this leaf for over a month.

 

Velvet mite

A Backyard Education

Today was still pretty soggy, even though it was sunny out. It rained a lot yesterday, and today was very humid, so the backyard was still really wet. Also, it was hot. Hot weather sometimes seems to make bugs very energetic, particularly bees. There were a lot of bees around today, and they were quite busy. There were quite a lot of different species of bees around today, which is always great to see. Funny how only a few years ago I had no idea there were more than about three or four kinds of bees. I have done a lot of reading in those years, and learned a lot about bugs from that, but mostly I know about all these different kinds of bees from seeing them for myself. My backyard is very educational for me. On a sad, but maybe hopeful note, a species of bumblebee has just been added to the Endangered Species List, which will supposedly give it some protection.

I peeked very carefully today and discovered that the nesting bird I kept accidentally annoying yesterday is a robin. The nest on the ground is still empty.

I have also found out that there are a lot of species of beetles that hang around in my backyard, like today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is a longhorned beetle, I think the species Urgleptes signatus, which is in the sub-family of flat-faced longhorns. Don't be too impressed that I "know" that–I looked it up in Insects of New England and New York by Tom Murray. This might be a new species for me; I can never be sure, though, because there are a lot of longhorn beetles and I could have seen it before and not remember it.

 Two interesting things: look at the length of that antenna! And one of them seems to be broken.

 For some reason when I got close with my camera it pulled its antennae back along its body, which offers a good look at how long they are in relation to each other.

The funny caterpillar continues to amuse:

 I think that the tiny sweat bees that feed on these flowers were annoying it, so it flopped down like this...

 ... and flopped back and forth a few times.

Bees on milkweed:

 

 

 Rocking some bright orange pollen pants (note that that is not an official entomological term. It's just what I call it when bees have polled collected on their legs).

 This was a really big robber fly, with even bigger prey. It's hard to tell, but I think that is a moth it has caught.

 I am pretty sure this gypsy moth caterpillar was preparing to pupate... until I put an end to that plan. This is the only gypsy moth caterpillar I saw today. I am happy about that.

 Ladybeetle larva

 I don't find a lot of bugs in the wooded areas of my backyard (at least, not by comparison of the grassy/flowery parts), but there is one rather small area where I frequently see these huge flies. I don't know why.

 Buffalo tree hopper

Soggy

To be perfectly honest, some days I just don't feel like doing this. I don't always want to go outside and look for bugs, particularly knowing that if I am successful, I have a couple of hours work ahead of me to produce a blog post about it. And as much as I love being outside, I don't love it ALL the time. Some days I just want to stay inside and not get sweaty, or... whatever the extreme is outside. I thought that today was going to be a day off, and I really wanted it to be; it was pouring rain all morning and into the afternoon, and I was sure that it was not going to let up all day, and I could, without having to admit to being lazy, take a day off from hunting for bugs. And it was really just because the weather was gross. I don't really like doing my bug walks after it has been raining all day. I don't like the sogginess of it, and the darkness, and the fact that everything is just wet. I mean, you just end up feeling like this:

 

 

So I was not thrilled when it stopped raining today just as I was getting home from running errands. I didn't want to go out, and it wasn't just because everything was soaked, it was because the aftermath of the rain was humidity that you could cut with a knife. Not nice weather for being outside. By every measure of how I decide how nice the weather is, this was awful. But there was a cute caterpillar on a plant right next to the front walk as I got home, so I wanted to take a picture of it...

 

 (I know, I keep posting pictures of the same caterpillar, but it's cute)

...and then... well, I didn't do a complete bug walk. I only walked around the grassy areas of the backyard, and skipped the wooded areas because they would have been drippy and just wetter. And at first it seemed like it was a big waste of time, because I had a hard time finding any bugs at first. But then I came to the milkweed flowers that are in bloom... I keep saying if you want to find bugs, you have to go where the bugs are, and right now the bugs are on the milkweed flowers in bloom. Ultimately it was a very satisfying bug walk, and I went into the house in a better mood (albeit very sweaty and gross).

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 I think this is a silver spotted skipper

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 I don't know what this is, other than it is a Hemiptera of some kind and something I have not seen before, so, yay, another new species for the backyard!

It had a droplet of water on its eye, which magnifies it quite interestingly. I don't know how this was not driving it crazy, and I wonder what effect it had on the insect's vision.

 Side view; you can see the proboscis and the drop of water on its eye.

 I found this nest nestled (ha!) on the ground. There are no eggs in it, and I don't know if this is an abandoned nest, or one that has been recently built but not had eggs laid in it yet. I haven't noticed it before, and it is in a pretty exposed spot. I found one like this last summer with four eggs in it, abandoned; one of the eggs was broken and empty, and the others were intact, but it was clear that nobody was tending the nest. I wonder if this is the same birds. I found another nest today in a tree; I didn't see it at first, but every time I walked past the tree a bird darted away, and I realized I was probably disturbing a bird on her nest. I peeked in among the many vines covering the tree and saw the nest. So now I have to avoid that area for a while.

Other Bugs:

 Candy striped leaf hopper. I have been seeing them around lately, and have noticed that they are much brighter in color than when I see them basking in the late winter/early spring.

 Hover fly

 Not all the bees were waterlogged...

 

But this black firefly seems to have gotten caught in water droplets on the garden shed; it was stuck to the shed and struggling. I gently righted it, and I hope it was okay. I note that there don't appear to be any light organs, unless that light line on its underside is the "smaller" light organs one of the books said they had.

 I think this is a fall webworm moth caterpillar?

 Plume moth

Fly

 Washing its face

 Tiny caterpillar