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Ooof. Too much that was interesting in my backyard today. To be specific, it was the last day of October, and there were bugs all over the place. It was 68ºF, which is pretty warm for this date, the rain more or less abated for a while, long enough for me to do my bug walk, and blustery, a balmy, wet wind. Not good photography weather, but it sure brought out a lot of leaf hoppers!

There were bugs in a couple of particular locations: the mums in the rock garden, of course; on one side of the house and the adjacent garbage cans; on tree trunks. Mostly leaf hoppers–I only got pictures of a few, but there were many of them, and several species–but other bugs, too, of a variety of orders. I don't even know where to begin...

Okay, I'll begin with Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1

 Leaf hopper. I looked it up, but could not figure out what kind it is.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Moth fly. These are tiny flies that, as you can guess from the name, look like moths. I usually have a hard time getting pictures of them, because they can be skittish, but today they cooperated.

 In fact, there were several on this tree trunk.

Bugs on the Side of the House/Garbage Can:

 Banded tussock moth caterpillar. I thought these were all gone for the season.

 Looper caterpillar

Wood louse

 

 Tree cricket

I saw a lot of these hoppers, but most of the pictures didn't come out.

Bugs on Mums:

 Sweat bee

 Flower fly

A couple of flower flies

 Gnat

 March fly

Bumblebee

 It was extremely windy, so I had to hold the flowers for a lot of my pictures.

 Fly

 Fly

Also in the Rock Garden:

 Wasp

 March fly

 Grass hopper

 On Tree Trunks:

 Hopper

These next several were all on the same tree, within a space of about a square foot:

 Hoppers

 Rove beetle

 Weevil

These others were on different trees around the backyard:

 Tree cricket

 Hopper

 Woolly aphids

 Hopper

 Cricket

 Stinkbug

 Not an insect. A tiny mushroom growing on a tree trunk.

 Tiny leaf hopper, the same kind that was BBotD yesterday.

This picture is not what I wanted it to be, because of the wind, but there is a leaf hopper and a buffalo tree hopper (which flew away before I could get a better shot).

I'm not sure what this is, on the side of the shed.

On the Front Porch, Attracted to the Light:

I had the porch light on all evening for Trick-or-treaters, and forgot to turn it off until quite late in the evening. The storm was raging by then, and the wind was fierce while the temperature was still quite balmy, and there were several bugs that were not the kinds I usually see attracted to the porch light, like this robber fly.

And this tiny sweat bee. Bees are definitely not normal porch light attractees.

Looper caterpillar

Tree cricket. I do get those on the porch.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spiders:

This one was on that tree trunk with the bugs.