Bug Schedules

 Lately I have felt like insects must have calendars and traditions. I look at memory posts online, and recently on many days I have seen a bug for the first time this year on the exact same date when that bug was Backyard Bug of the Day a few years ago.

Like today. I don't remember which year, but on this date a few years ago I featured an American Copper butterfly as Backyard Bug of the Day. And today...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

American Copper butterfly. Note the broken wing. Butterflies can still fly with pretty large sections of their wings missing.

Rarely do I get to see the dorsal side (this view) AND the ventral side of a butterfly's wings.

 One great thing about this butterfly is obviously how cooperative it was. It did flit around a bit, but you can see that it allowed me to get pretty close, and at one point flew over and landed right in front of me. Other butterflies were not so cooperative today; when I had just finished photographing this one some kind of swallowtail swooped past me and the soared up into the treetops, like it was making sure I saw it, but refused to stop for pictures. Then later I saw what could have been monarch butterflies a couple of times. They zoomed past me too fast for me to identify them. As you know if you have been reading this blog lately, I am not getting pictures of butterflies, but I do see them quite often, which I always love.

I didn't exactly do a bug walk today. I did wander a bit with my camera, and I also took pictures of bugs that I saw while I was weeding the garden, sitting on the back porch steps, and specifically looking for bugs I have been keeping an eye on. Other Bugs from today (June 30):

This is one I have been keeping an eye on. The eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar has spent most of the last week lounging on its silk hammock. About a week ago I saw it wandering around on this sassafras tree where its hammock is, and this evening I saw it actually eating a leaf! But by the time I went to take its picture, it had gone back to the hammock. It is definitely bigger now. I think it will become a pupa soon.

 A rare glimpse of its head. (I took this picture a couple of days ago).

 I found the furcula caterpillar in this un-restful pose:

... but later I found it eating, too!

I think I have figured out what those beetle larvae on the pussywillow bush have become. Instead of larvae, today I found these beetles scattered around on leaves all over the bush.

Juvenile praying mantis in the rock garden, blending in quite well. I am surprised I even saw it.
 

After dark the wasps on the nest on the railroad crossing sign were much mellower, so I was able to get closer with my camera. I could see inside the nest, though, and the ones inside were quite active. 

I found this fish fly (I think) on the window screen on the back porch. When I saw it it had its wings splayed out, but by the time I went in the house and got my camera, it had closed up.

This leafhopper was on the window screen, too. That gives you a sense of how tiny it was. It could probably have fit through the screen if it wanted to. 

We're out of order, going from daytime sighted bugs, to nighttime, back to day... It's a pity I didn't have my camera on my night hike tonight, because I saw some interesting bugs in the woods after dark.

For a couple of days there has been a lady beetle larva on a leaf of the back porch tree. I can see it from where I sit on the steps. I saw it in the afternoon, looking normal, but by evening...

It looks like it is standing up, but what it has done is anchored its back end to the leaf to prepare to become a pupa.

About an hour or so after I noticed that, it became...

 

A pupa! The back end of it is anchored to the leaf, but weirdly, the pupa can move, sometimes "standing" straight up, and at others down against the leaf like this. When it's standing if you disturb it it will go down like this. I read somewhere once that they do that as a form of defense, slapping down on anything that tries to attack them.

Because it had just turned into a pupa its color was pale, and not fully developed. If I look at it tomorrow I think it will be a darker color.

On milkweed:

Plume moth

Flower beetle

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Flower crab spider eating a plume moth on milkweed flowers.

A couple of nights ago while out for a night hike I was wearing my hat with insect netting, which generally keeps me from noticing when I walk through a spider web. But when I walked through the support thread for this spider's web...

She's a big spider; I think if she sat on a quarter her legs would hang over the sides. Her web was huge, too. The orb part (meaning the webbish part, not including the supporting threads) was at least two feet high by more than a foot wide. The anchor threads went from the ground up way over my head. I walked through a side support, but it didn't seem to hurt the web at all. This web was just down the path from the house, so I went in and got my camera to take these pictures.

I accidentally hit one of the lower support threads with my foot, and she pulled her legs in against her body, as spiders sometimes do, as if they are trying to make themselves invisible by being smaller. It didn't work, she was still huge. 

Earlier on that walk we saw another spider of the same species, also with a pretty big web, but neither the spider nor the web were as big as this one.

Enticing Butterfly

I got home from an appointment early this afternoon feeling grouchy. The appointment was frustrating, it was hot and humid, and I wanted to go in the house and take a nap. But... as I mounted the back porch steps an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly swooped in to feed on a patch of honeysuckle. I watched. I haven't been able to take a picture of an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly in a couple of years. The last couple of years I hardly even saw any, and they were all high in the trees. This one was down at my level, feeding on flowers. It stayed; there were lots of honeysuckle flowers. I reminded myself that I don't chase butterflies. I told myself that if I went inside and got my camera the butterfly would be gone by the time I got back. I told myself that I didn't want to do a bug walk in the heat and humidity, that I just wanted to take a nap. 

Then I went inside and got my camera.

The butterfly was gone by the time I got back.

Of course. So I didn't get a picture of an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly. But...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar. It's pretty late instar, I think this is close to being ready to pupate. I don't know if you can tell, but if it looks like it is hovering away from the surface of the leaf that is because it is. It has made a mat of silk a bit like a hammock that it rests on when it is not eating. From past observation it seems like eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillars never eat, they just hang out on their hammocks. It's a little annoying to realize that this has been hanging out about 3 steps from my back porch for weeks and I did not notice it until today. That's what I get for not doing bug walks. Well, I did two today; one after not getting a picture of the butterfly, and one in the evening just because I felt like it. I found this near the end of that second walk, about a foot away from where I saw the butterfly in the afternoon.

I saw a lot of butterflies today. Here's the only one I got a photo of:

I went to check on some milkweed, looking for monarch caterpillars, or any of the other insects that are partial to milkweed, and I found this skipper.

The milkweed is just starting to bloom, attracting bees...

 

 And a plume moth. In years past I have sometimes found up to a dozen plume moths on a milkweed plant.

Cockroach

Buffalo leaf hopper nymph

Moth on fern

Common mullein is a plant I find in my backyard every year. It has big leaves that spread out at the bottom, and a tall spike, up to about 5 or 6 feet tall, that has yellow flowers at the top. The plant is very fuzzy, from the leaves up to the flower buds. It also attracts a variety of insects:

This one is not blooming yet, but today I found quite a few bugs among the buds.

I think this is a robber fly, eating a tiny wasp.

The back porch tree continues to be full of living things, mostly aphids and their attendant ants:

So many aphids...

Syrphid fly larva, which feeds on aphids. The "head" end is on the left. These things don't look like they have eyes at all, just a mouth. Their back end anchors to the plant and the mouth end kind of flops around trying to find aphids to eat. It's pretty creepy to watch. Okay, I just looked it up, they don't have heads, eyes, or "chewing mouthparts."

Lady beetle larva...

 

... and pupa

I have been keeping an eye on the two furcula caterpillars on the back porch tree, but for the last couple of days I have not been able to find them. Then today I spotted this one, in this exact position. The thing behind it that appears to be a tiny replica of it is its exuvia, the skin is just molted out of. When I looked at it a couple of hours later the exuvia was gone, possibly eaten by the caterpillar itself.

 Last week I saw a bunch of these larvae on a leaf together:

They looked like they were a couple of days old, and had eaten much of the leaf of the pussywillow plant they were on. Yesterday I saw two of them on a leaf together. Today I could only find one. Many of the leaves of the pussywillow have similar damage, so I think maybe the larvae dispersed around the plant. Many of them may have been eaten, too; that is why insects have large broods, because many of them will not mature to imago (adult) stage.

Definitely not a ladybeetle, but I don't know what kind of larva this is.

 Some other kind of very small beetle

Now, the bugs from the last few days:

June 17:

Syrphid fly larva, and an aphid that would be smart to keep its distance.

June 20:

I think this is some kind of sphinx moth caterpillar. I don't feel like explaining why, but I think that brown goo is its vomit that is part of a complicated "don't eat me!" display. I found this caterpillar when I cut the grape vine it was on while walking in the woods. Then I had to walk back to the house to get my camera (I wasn't that far along on my walk). I then figured at least I would have my camera when I saw more bugs on my walk. 

This is the only other animal I saw:

Not a bug.

June 22:

I have a railroad crossing sign next to my driveway (but not a railroad), and I noticed that some wasps had built a nest in there. It is about the size of a softball. I could not get too close while taking these pictures, because it is when they feel their nest is threatened that they become aggressive.

 

Arachnid Appreciation:

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On a milkweed plant. If the milkweed was covered with the myriad bugs for which it is host this would be a great place for a spider. But it was pretty lonely.

Spider egg sac. I have seen these for years, and it has always been obvious to me that it is an egg sac, but I could never find out what it was until someone commented on one last year in the insect group I am in on Facebook. So now I know it is a spider egg sac. Either there are not very many spiderlings in there, or they are incredibly tiny, because this thing is probably less than a quarter inch in diameter.

Backyard Reptile of the Day:

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Garter snake. It was pretty small, so a juvenile. Found on a walk in the woods, photographed with my phone.

Just once, though, I would like the Backyard Reptile of the Day to be a turtle or tortoise.