The Bugs in the Backyard: Freeze!

Oops. Getting a late start here...
Here is a picture of a wasp:

And here's a fly.

And another fly.

And a crane fly. You may be wondering what is so special about these insects; they're not great pictures, and I haven't named them as the Backyard Bugs of the Day, so why are they so prominently featured here? It is because of the plant they are on, my morning glory vines. The morning glories didn't have a great year this year. They didn't bloom until last week, and they only had a couple of flowers, some of which never fully opened (they were also small, and not the color of the seeds I thought I planted, so I don't know what happened there). There were a lot of buds on the plants, but I didn't have high hopes for them due to the late blooming. Morning glories are not hardy plants, and I knew that frost would kill them. There were a couple of nights this week that temperatures were supposed to get really low, so I have been covering the arbor all week, and last night was the night we were supposed to have the first frost of the season, so I covered the arbor in plastic sheeting again... but it didn't help. Last night the temperature went below freezing. There were no crickets calling in the darkness. And the morning glory vines died. I want to point out that the morning glory vines were the only thing in the backyard that was killed by frost. I am not a real gardener; most of what is growing in my backyard planted itself, or it was planted by birds, or by the wind carrying seeds. Things that grow wild grow where they grow best. Native plants are suited to the places where they grow, and the reason invasives become invasive is because they thrive in the situation where they are transported. In one way or another everything else in the backyard is natural. The morning glories were what I wanted to have growing there, even though it is clearly not their natural habitat. So, the frost killed them. But from all of these pictures of the bugs on the dead vines, indeed, the bugs all over my backyard today, you can see that the frost didn't kill them, either. I used to be one of those people who think that once winter comes, once the temperature drops below freezing, all of the bugs die, because bugs are only summer creatures (and spring and fall, but you get the idea). I did sometimes wonder, if all the bugs die in the winter, where do the bugs come from that we see in the spring, but even as I wondered that, I assumed they were, indeed, dying in the winter. Now I know better. A lot of insects live through the winter months, hidden away, their bodies basically full of antifreeze to keep their cells from bursting when they freeze. They may hibernate, or they may go into diapause, where their metabolic processes stop when they get too cold, but the revive in the spring. Some of them do die in the fall, having come to the end of their lifespans, which are pretty short for a lot of species, but they leave behind eggs, larva, or pupae that will last through the winter to become spring bugs. The circle of life, and all of that. But why, oh why, couldn't I have had a little more time with my morning glories?

There were plenty of bugs around today; the sun was shining and the temperature was way warmer than yesterday, getting close to 60ºF. In fact, though the temperature did dip into the upper 40s during the evening, by about 11 p.m. it was rising again, and it was back to 54ºF before midnight. It's strange.

Backyard Birds of the Day:

I opened the curtains to the view of a couple of turkeys walking by. I went to get my camera, and they had passed the window by then, so I opened the front door and realized it was more than a couple. I went out on the porch and saw this flock–some of them have already walked into the woods, so they're not in the picture.

At this time of year I never know how much time the bugs have left before they go into hiding for the winter (or die), so I am choosing three Backyard Bugs of the Day because I can.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

Field cricket, although I think of it as a "classic cricket," because I spent most of my life thinking that this is the only kind of cricket there is, so when I think of crickets, this is the first thing I think of. This one is quite a large individual, and it was quite cooperative in letting me get close enough to take a picture. It wasn't cold out, so I know it wasn't just in a stupor from that. It is on a rock in the rock garden, which once again was the location of quite a few insects from its order, Orthoptera (more on those later). I have seen quite a lot of these lately, including a couple of others today, but they usually don't let me get close enough for a picture.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Tortoise beetle. I was kind of surprised to see this, usually I see them only in the mid-summer.

Backyard Co-Bug #3:

Sweat bee, I think from the genus Sphecodes. Note the stilt bug behind it. This is the only bee I saw today.

If this is the kind I think it is, the black of its back end means its a male.

Terrible picture, but I wanted to show the two insects going for the same flower.

Meanwhile, in the rock garden and its general environs:

I spotted this caterpillar on the side of the house by the rock garden. I feel like I should mention that I have a problem with my knee that makes it difficult for me to take pictures of things from certain angles if they are very low, so I apologize that I didn't get a better shot of this. (For the last couple of months there have been a lot of bugs I couldn't photograph at all because of this problem). I tried looking it up, but there were too many things in the book that looked sort of like this but not really. I saw this at the start of my bug walk...

... and then toward the end of my bug walk I passed the rock garden again and saw this caterpillar. It was also on the side of the house (obviously), and I assumed it was the same one from before, and was kind of surprised at how far it had crawled during the time I was walking around. But then I noticed that the other caterpillar was still in the same spot where it had been, so I gave this one a closer look, and it's a different species. I tried looking this one up, too, but had the same problem. At least I know this one is some kind of looper.

On the same wall:

Sawfly.

The rock garden was full of flies, but also grasshoppers:

And katydids:

Other Bugs:

Another tiny moth on the shed. I wonder why these are suddenly showing up there.

Beetle

Crane fly

Bristletail

I like insects, and I like spiders, but I do not like all arthropods. I still live and let live, but some things just creep me out. Like this. It creeps me out so much that I didn't even want to look it up in the book, because the page that things like this are on creeps me out, too, but I did try to look it up... and it wasn't in the book. Some kind of centipede, or millipede, I guess.

It hasn't been so caterpillary lately, but today there were several about, including a couple of woolly bears:

Ant. The asters were not so popular today, but I did find this ant on one.

I saw a lot of tiny spiders today; there were multiple species, but all small. I wasn't successful in photographing all of them, but here are a few for Arachnid Appreciation:
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