Do you remember how in old cartoons they would show that someone was broke by having them open their change purse, or the old sock in which they carried their money, and moths would fly out? To show that there was no money in there, and had not been for a long time? That was my mailbox this morning when I went out to get the mail. Apparently a bunch of gypsy moth caterpillars crawled in there–how, I don't know–to pupate, and now they are moths. And apparently it is harder for a moth to get out of a closed mailbox than it is for a caterpillar to get in there. So, that was all kind of icky. It was not quite like the cartoons, though, because there was mail in the mailbox.
Today my bug walk started out to be another big fail, but suddenly it became a butterfly walk, which is a most beautiful thing. It was really quite charming at one point, with two species of butterflies fluttering in circles around me.
I'll start with today's Backyard Bug of the Day:
At first I thought this was a new species for me, but when I really looked closely at the picture, and did a little checking, I realized it is a mourning cloak butterfly. I don't think I have ever seen one in the middle of summer, I usually see them very early in the spring–they overwinter as butterflies, hiding in woodpiles and such. Usually when I see them they are kind of battered, with broken wings. This is quite a nice specimen, I am guessing it's pretty new. Oh, and I want you to know that in order to get this picture I had to climb into a thorn bush.
The first butterfly I saw today, though, was the always uncooperative...
Small wood satyr
And then, monarch butterflies!
Female
I saw her lay this egg.
There were at least two monarchs, because I saw them chasing each other around up in the air. There could have been more; it's impossible to know if the same butterfly keeps coming back or if there are many of them.
I also saw one or more swallowtails. Not well enough to identify the species, but at least this one almost paused for a couple of pictures.
I also spotted this, and wondered how I had missed it before:
A bit of dried leaf on the garden fence?
No, a chrysalis! Another one that is either a viceroy or red-spotted purple. If I wasn't going to be going away soon I would "adopt" the two chrysalides just to find out what emerges from them. I wonder how long this one has been on the fence. Note the curve in this one, too.
I found a couple of caterpillars, too–monarch caterpillars!
You can't tell from the pictures, but this one is about twice the size of the one below.
This one was very active:
It didn't seem so at first, because it was just sitting on this leaf, but when I went by a few minutes later and tried to find it again, it wasn't there...
It had crawled across a leaf onto the next plant over, and was wandering around on the flower buds.
So today I found the entire Lepidoptera life cycle–an egg, caterpillars, chrysalides, and butterflies. It's too bad I didn't find a monarch chrysalis, then I would have the whole set of one species! Anyway, it's cool to have found all four stages in one day, even for different species.
Backyard Fungus of the Day:
I don't think I have seen this species of mushroom in my backyard before. I don't have a mushroom field guide, so I have no idea what it is.
Other Bugs:
Another little Lepidoptera
Beetle
Candy striped leaf hopper
A couple of species of lady beetles:
My favorite: Brachiacantha ursina
My unfavorite: Twenty-spotted lady beetles. Male and female, from left to right in this picture.
Arachnid Appreciation:
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Not sure what's going on here... foot in mouth? Scratching its belly?
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