Home Sweet Home

There was an article in The Hartford Courant newspaper earlier this week that I didn't get around to reading until today about the effectiveness of clothing treated to repel insects. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) did lab tests on clothing treated with permethrin, and found that they do indeed prevent tick bites. It said that "the garments either caused the ticks to quickly fall off or rendered them unable to bite." My experience with such clothes is that the ticks FLING themselves off. And ticks can't even jump. But they clearly want to get away from those pants. So, good to know that science has shown them to be effective, but I already knew from my own experience. Since I started wearing tick repellent pants, every tick bite I have had has been after not wearing them. Of course, the reason I have such a problem with ticks in my backyard is because I refuse to follow all of the advice for making your yard unfriendly to ticks, and that is because a backyard that is unfriendly to ticks is also unfriendly to a lot of other things. So I will continue to wear my anti-tick pants and take other precautions (and maybe I will get the Lyme disease vaccine when it is approved, although that will help with only one of the tick-borne diseases), just to keep my backyard as friendly to wildlife, even tiny wildlife. And speaking of which:

 

 For Christmas my in-laws gave me this awesome mason bee house, which provides habitat for mason bees. They like to build nests in holes, and this has reeds in it providing lots of holes. Today I finally figured out where my husband stashed it after Christmas and hung it up in the backyard. I will henceforth be anxious to see some mason bees building homes in it. It's quite a handsome structure, too.

Everything was in motion in the backyard today, the bugs, the leaves on the trees... I had hoped that once the rain on Wednesday came and went it would be calmer, but it never actually rained, and the wind has continued. It makes insect photography nearly impossible, but I do what I can.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Another beetle larva. It kind of looks like a ladybeetle larva, but not exactly, so I don't think that's what it is.

 A glimpse of its head.

It was on a tree trunk that had a lot of insects and other arthropods in a very small space. There were a couple of these:

Mealy bug destroyer larva, which looks like it's related to the Backyard Bug of the Day, like the BBotD is its goth cousin.

 Also on that tree trunk, this fly, eating something tiny.

 And this mite (which I know belongs in Arachnid Appreciation, but no one is freaked out by this picture, right?)

 Other Bugs:

 Robber fly eating long-legged fly

 Assassin bug

Another species of assassin bug

 Katydid nymph

 I think the yellow thing on the right is some kind of larva.

Different species of katydid nymph. This is by far the smallest I have ever seen of this species, about a quarter of an inch long at most (speaking of the body, not the looooooong legs).

Bees were more plentiful today:

 Sweat bee. Maybe.

Sweat bee

 

 It's nice to see bees; they've been scarce lately, even with the multiflora rose in bloom. This honeysuckle (also invasive) seems to be more appetizing.

 Can you see the springtail?

Weevils eating milkweed

Six-spotted tiger beetle. This is the kind of day I had in the backyard. See a cool bug, but it's on the other side of the garden fence.

I saw a really cool bug, I think it must have been some kind of huge fly that looked like a bumblebee–it landed right next to me, with big fly in its mouth (or mouth-parts, anyway), but just as I got the camera focused it flew away. So frustrating!

I have been seeing a LOT of caterpillars lately, but today I only saw this one (and a few gypsy moth caterpillars, but I don't WANT to see those).

Cockroach. I know everyone hates those, but this one is quite pretty. And it's the woodland kind, not the kitchen kind. Very important distinction. No need to hate the bugs that don't harm you. These are important in the ecosystem, helping to break down dead leaves and other debris in the woods.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Spiders will often build their webs in the same spot for weeks, which I assume means that they have found success in that location and figure they might as well stay since they are catching food there. I sometimes get attached to them, happy to see them every day in that spot. And then I feel a bit sad when one day they don't have a web there anymore. That was the case the last few days in the spot where the cross spider was. It was a terribly location for photography, but I liked seeing the spider there, and missed it when it left. But today there was a new web, so I figured I had just not seen it for a few days. But I don't think this is the same spider that was there before:

 It might be the same species, but it's smaller and the markings are not as distinct. Young? Male? I don't know.

 Orchard spider

 Another mite. I think this one is called velvet mite.