Coming Blooms

The temperature is dropping... We had a threat of frost last week that did not come to pass, and tonight that is in the forecast again. That will be the end for some insects, but by no means all. It remains to be seen if the freeze actually happens.

There are more flowers coming, though:

 

Mums are a nice late-blooming flower for pollinators. Last year I planted some perennial mums, and they bloomed–and attracted pollinators–into November, as I recall, even though we had had frost before then. The mosquitoes will be killed off by the frost, but there will still be bugs around to feed on this flower when it opens.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 

 Field cricket. Quite a large cricket.

There was one on the foundation of the house, too, in the rock garden:

Other Bugs:

 White hickory tussock moth caterpillar

Grasshopper

The asters were nearly deserted today:

 One lethargic bumblebee...

 

 ... and one lethargic potters wasp

 Leaf hopper. Notice that the leaves are no longer green.

 Wasp

I always love it when I can get more than one insect in a shot, particularly if there's more than one species:

 

 Two kinds of flies, wasps (same kinds of wasps, I think), and ants

 Feeding on wild grapes

 Winter firefly

 Milkweed bugs feeding on milkweed seeds

A couple of looper caterpillars:

 Robber fly eating another fly

Arachnid Appreciation:
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The marbled orb weaver hasn't built a web in a few days (it was washed out by the heavy rains on Wednesday night), and today it was tucked up in its bower, which it has closed up a bit more.

I watched this jumping spider crawl around on this plant for a while (and attempt to crawl across a silk thread onto my camera), but it never did notice the leaf hopper there that it could have captured.

This tiny jumping spider has caught something.