Sleepy Blogger

Right now I am the kind of tired where I might fall asleep on my keyboard while waiting for pictures to load, so I can't bring myself to think of anything interesting to say. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Silver spotted skipper butterfly

Other Bugs:

 Hover fly

 Caterpillar on milkweed

 I am too tired to remember what kind of nymph this is, or to look it up.

 Beetle

 Wasp

 Caterpillar

 Caterpillar

 I didn't get a good enough look at this to identify it, but it could be a mourning cloak butterfly.

 Plant bug

 Hover fly

 Beetle larva

 Firefly

 Plume moth

 Caterpillar

 Flower fly

 Hopper nymph

Caterpillar

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Spontaneous Bug Search

I wasn't going to do a bug walk today because I didn't have the time and it was raining again today, but I saw a cool spider when I went outside to get the mail, so I had to go inside and get my camera, and then once I was out there taking pictures of the spider I looked around, and one thing led to another, and...

I didn't do a full bug walk. I did look around for bugs though.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of plant bug

Other Bugs:

 Caterpillar

 I saw this after my non-bug walk, and had to take the picture with a cellphone. It was windy (of course, it's always windy these days), so it's kind of blurry. But this is the eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar I saw a few days ago.

 In spite of the fact that it was raining a bit (like it does pretty much every day now; I think we've had a month's worth of rain this week), there were bumblebees feeding on the raspberries).

 Katydid nymph

I think it is funny that I can barely identify more than a few species of caterpillar, but some I can recognize by their discarded skins:

 White marked tussock moth caterpillar

 And here it is, on the other end of the leaf.

 Cranefly

 Moth

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

 This is a new species of spider for me, I think. This is from when I startled it and it dropped down onto this milkweed leaf.

 This is from when it moved back up among the milkweed flower buds.

Jumping spider on milkweed

Insect Forecasters

I'm reading a book called Thud! by Terry Pratchett, and today I read a line that said, "Ankh-Morpork* could feel trouble ahead like spiders could feel tomorrow's rain." I have speculated before that insects (and spiders, I guess arthropods in general) can tell what the weather is going to be, but I have never read anything about that, and yet, here is that same idea in a novel, presented like folk wisdom. Maybe it's true. Of course, I don't know exactly how spiders would behave knowing it's going to rain tomorrow, but they were out today. Does that mean that they know it's going to rain tomorrow, and they wanted to be sure to get something to eat today? Did they know it wasn't going to rain more than a short drizzly period today, in spite of the forecast for more rain today? Did they know that after yesterday's inch and three-quarters that the rain is done? I don't know, but I saw a lot of spiders, along with more hover flies than I have ever seen in a single day, and a variety of other insects. I won't show you the spiders until the end, but as for the other insects...
Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of hopper nymph

 Here's where I spotted it. For context, that caterpillar is about a quarter of an inch long.

Other Bugs:

 Discarded exoskeleton of a molted buffalo leaf hopper

 The bumblebees were quite busy among the raspberry blooms.

Leaf-footed bug on the favorite tree of the leaf-footed bugs

Assassin bug

I have still not found out what kind of insect egg this is.

Moth

Scorpion fly

White marked tussock moth caterpillar

Caterpillar dangling from a thread

Hopper nypmh

I'm not sure if this is the same kind of nymph, but a different instar, or a different species.

Leaf hopper. That could be a raindrop, or it could be a massive accumulation of honeydew.

Now for the daisy fleabane, and a great many hover flies:

The daisy fleabane was even more crowded today. Here is a bee and hover fly.

Bee and gnat

Not all the hover flies were on the daisy fleabane...

It is still mating season for the hover flies

This was a very popular flower cluster.

 Note the pair on the left

 Sweat bee and hover fly

 Gnat

 Hemiptera nymph

 This was a pretty big fly, over half an inch long, I would guess.

Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

A purple spider! I thought this was a wonderful find.

The general dampness of the backyard and the finding of a daddy-long-legs reminded me of being at Girl Scout Camp when I was a kid, where there were always daddy-long-legs everywhere, and it always seemed to be damp. Good times.

A new species of spider for me!

This was on the back porch, just outside the door, probably trying to decide whether or not to go in.