Scarcity

 Today's Backyard Bug of the Day is an insect that has been strangely scarce this year. Normally I see a lot of grasshoppers around this time, and for weeks before this I would have been seeing grasshopper nymphs, but that has not been the case this year. I only saw two or three nymphs, and today I saw only my second red-legged grasshopper of the season. There is another species of grasshopper that I have seen multiple times (but never got close enough to get even a bad picture), but no red-legged, which is the most common species in my backyard most years. Obviously I have no idea why. It is concerning, however.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Red-legged grasshopper

Other Bugs:

 

Jagged assassin bug with potter's wasp prey, on goldenrod

 

Pearl crescent butterfly. I do not like to sound churlish, but why do I only ever get pictures of orange butterflies? Particularly orange and black butterflies? That's two of my three least favorite colors. I am glad that any butterfly at all will cooperate with me, but why is it only ever the orange ones? Why can't I ever get a good picture of a red-spotted purple, which is actually blue? I don't think I have even seen red-spotted purples a dozen times, and I have never gotten even an okay picture of one. But monarchs, viceroys, pearl crescents, American coppers... but I shouldn't complain. It is nice that they will sit still for a decent photo once in a while. I should just resign myself to never even getting a good look at a red-spotted purple.

 

If you were to take a census of the bugs in my backyard based on the pictures in this blog you would get the erroneous idea that I never see any wasps. For some reason they have been exceptionally skittish this year, so I haven't been able to photograph them. I got this one today on Japanese knotweed, and unfortunately invasive plant that right now is very popular with pollinators–as you can see from the fact that the wasp has company in the form of two flies. The second fly may not be obvious, way over on the left side of the stem. The other, a tachinid fly, is a rather large fly species.

This is not a good picture of any of them, but there are four different species of insects here.

 

Honey bee

 

I keep expecting to find a bunch of adult large milkweed bugs on the plants, but it hasn't happened yet.

I went out after dark again to see what I could find on the flowers:

A couple of moths on autumn joy sedum, both of which were rather nondescript...

And on the goldenrod:

This bumblebee was not just hanging around in a stupor for the night; it was moving.

Katydid

Moth

The lack of blog for yesterday is due to the unusual circumstance of it raining all day. It didn't rain much, mostly just barely drizzling, but not camera weather.

 I had a close encounter with a spider this morning. As I was lying in bed thinking about how much I did not want to get up and face the day, I heard a very slight sound next to me, as if something had landed on the mattress. I turned to look, knowing the possibility of what I had just heard, and instantly having it confirmed: a spider had dropped beside me on the bed. There was a time when I would have jumped out of bed at that instant, and the only thing that would have made me hesitate in killing the spider would have been not wanting a squished spider on the sheet. I used to kill every spider I saw in my house. Eventually I stopped doing that, but I would still kill spiders I found in the bedroom. Then I reprieved most spiders in the bedroom, but not any that were dangling over the bed. But lately, I have been enjoying watching spiders on the skylight above the bed. I just sort of assumed that they would stay there. Anyway, I let them wander there, never once even considering killing them. I did not freak out when the spider sat down beside me, and had I had any curds and whey, I would not have spilled it. But I did say to the spider, "You can't be here." Then I gently captured it in a tissue and released it out the window. I didn't go get my camera first, because when you have a spider in your bed you don't let it out of your sight, in case it crawls somewhere you definitely don't want to find a spider. Arachnid Appreciation: 

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Jumping spider