Green World

 I go for a walk in the woods every day, and I let my eyes drink in the greenness. It's like being an a world of green. It's marvelous. Lately I think about enjoying it while it lasts. There are a few leaves changing color already, and the forecasters of such things say that due to our severe drought autumn colors will be early. The nights are getting chilly. I think about twenty minutes ago my automatic heating system switched off summertime mode. We've reached meteorological autumn, and social autumn, but we've some time left before astronomical autumn. However, it feels like autumn, even though everything is still so green.

And speaking of green, here's Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 

This moth is called pale beauty wavy lined emerald. It is another geometer moth. You can't really see it, but it's on a purple coneflower.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 

Red admiral butterfly on autumn joy sedum

 

Joined by a bumblebee

 

Other Bugs:

Sweat bee, contentedly feeding on a thistle blossom (the dark blur is an ant)...
 

... until a bumblebee stumbles in...
 

... and steps right on the sweat bee. Bumblebees have no respect for other bugs' personal space.
 

We're about to get kind of gross for a minute...

I spotted a few bottle flies on a leaf, on what I thought was an earthworm. The flies flew away, of course, but one came back, with a few gnats, and while I was looking at it, I noticed...

... that on the ground underneath it were rather a lot of bottle flies. On... some things that looked kind of goopy. And there were ants, too, on other suspect substances. And I began to think that maybe that wasn't an earthworm (and how would an earthworm get up there on a leaf? I mean, it was only a couple feet of the ground, but...). And I think that maybe the thing on the leaf, and the stuff on the ground used to be inside an animal that was preyed upon... I chose not to look clearly at any of it.

There are only a couple of nymphs left in the milkweed patch, and it seems like some of the remaining adults are protecting them.

Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The orb weaver is curled up in her bower again.