Location, Location

Insects can definitely be fair weather friends. And today the weather was fair–in the 60s–so I saw a lot more of my friends than I have the last few days (though I haven't done a full bug walk in a couple of days). Most of the bugs I saw were in one of two places: in the rock garden, including on the chrysanthemums, or on a particular tree. I saw very few bugs anywhere else. Insect orders represented today are Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera,

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Fly. I don't know what kind, but it has really cool eyes. (Diptera)

 See? I didn't notice that when I was taking the pictures, or I would have tried to get a better angle on the eyes. Sometimes I am just so focused on some practicality (pun not so much intended as inevitable), like keeping the insect in focus while the wind is blowing, that I miss details like this.

When I first saw it I thought it was a tiny bee; this is a leaf of one of the chrysanthemum plants, a normal place for a bee to be. Note that the fly is covered with pollen; it is a pollinator, too.

More pollinators on the chrysanthemums:

 (Diptera)

 

 (Diptera)

 Plume moth (Lepidoptera)

The grasshoppers were back in numbers in the rock garden today, and it was warm enough, even without sunshine to bask in, for them to be very energetic. (Orthoptera)

 And there are insects in the rock garden that I did not expect:

 Spotted cucumber beetle.  I think this might actually be there to eat the flower petals. (Coleoptera)

Sweat bees (Hymenoptera):

 This mum has had all of its petals eaten off, but the part important to this hover fly remains. (Diptera)

 Plant bug (Hemiptera)

This is the other place I saw a lot of bugs, but in this case it was many of one species:

 Candy striped leaf hoppers love this tree in the fall, winter, and early spring. Even in the winter, if the temperature is mild and the sun is out I see them there. Leaf hoppers feed on liquid from plants, and I think when the leaves are dried out they suck it from the stems; the stems from which the leaves grow are tender enough for them to feed, unlike the bark of the trunk or bigger branches. This tree keeps its leaves until the spring, a lot of them anyway, and I used to think that was why the leaf hoppers were there, but I don't think they feed from the leaves. After feeding on all that liquid, which is high in sugar, they excrete excess sugar as a liquid called honeydew. You can see a drop of it on one of the leaves. (Hemiptera)

 Sometimes I can find a lot of them gathered on this tree. I can see fifteen of them in this shot; how many can you find?

 Milkweed bugs (Hemiptera)

 Stinkbug (Hemiptera)

 Assassin bug (Hemiptera)

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider

A brief encounter between a tiny spider and an ant (Hymenoptera), from which both fled in fright.