The Good and the Bad in Lepidoptera

Oops, look at the time... I better hurry to get this going!
Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I've always thought this species of moth looks like a lace tablecloth. Very elegant.

This moth, on the other hand, I hate:

 This is a male gypsy moth. My backyard is FULL of them, fluttering around, looking for mates, crashing into things. They are very clumsy flyers. During the caterpillar phase of this year's infestation I thought there weren't very many of them, but now that I see how many have become adults, I realize there were more than there appeared to be.

 Here is a female gypsy moth.

 She is laying eggs on this tree. The females don't fly; they emerge from their chrysalis and just hang out near where they emerged, waiting for a male to come by. Then they lay the eggs and die.

There is a species of leaf hopper whose nymphs are very pale, and look like they should glow in the dark. I don't know what species they are. I saw this today:

I have never seen one like this, with the orange on the developing elytra, and I wonder if this is a later instar of the same species.

Fall webworm moth. When I took the picture I didn't realize it was being photobombed by a plant bug.

Katydid nymph

White marked tussock moth caterpillar

I think this is probably some kind of beetle larva.

A daytime look at the new chrysalis:

It's not an attractive thing, like a monarch chrysalis, but that's probably useful for camouflage.

I think it might not have completely been solidified when I saw it early in the day, because later in the day it had developed this curve. I don't know if that's normal, and if it's not, what effect that will have on the butterfly developing inside.

You can see where the wings, eyes, and antennae will develop. I don't know what that bump in the middle is for.

Can you see the world's most uncooperative butterfly, the small wood satyr? (That's probably not true, I am sure there are other species that are more uncooperative, but this one has been teasing me relentlessly for weeks).

Do you see the one that photobombed my picture of the one sitting on the leaf?

Looper of some kind

Hairstreak butterfly. Its wing is too damaged for me to see the entire pattern, so I couldn't identify it. From what little I can see, though, I am not sure I could even if it was complete–it mostly looks like a species that is apparently only found in Texas, which is very far from here. You can see a bit of the dorsal side of the other wing because of the damage, and it appears to be a very drab color.

Monarch caterpillar! This one is about a quarter inch long.

 Hopper nymph

 Tiny caterpillar, about a quarter inch long.

And in bird news:

The robins hatched a few days ago. I finally got a picture of two little beaks (the one on the left is harder to make out). I can't tell how many are in there, total.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Mama spider, and to the right the web full of spiderlings (I think you can see a few).

Spiderling. To get an idea of how small it is, note the thickness of the leaf in comparison.