Caterpillar Hide and Seek

 I led a group walk in my woods today, and because I was focused on that, instead of looking for bugs (although I did spot a fair few), I missed seeing a really cool caterpillar in the meadow in the woods. My husband, who was bringing up the rear of the group, spotted it and pointed it out to me. I should have take a picture with my phone, since I didn't have my camera with me, but after the tour, I later went back with my camera to try to find the caterpillar again and take pictures of it. It was a new species for me, and you know how excited I always get about those. With a caterpillar there's always a chance you might find it right where you last saw it–if they're eating a leaf, they may still be eating, or they may be resting, as caterpillars seem to spend a lot of time doing. 

I'm sure you can guess where this story is going. I did not find the caterpillar. I looked all up and down the meadow path, on both sides, looking for that big, brown caterpillar. There's nothing much blooming in the meadow right now, so it's a sea of green, and the caterpillar did stand out a bit (but not enough to keep me from walking right by without seeing it the first time!), so I figured it would be easy to find, but it wasn't there anymore. Either it walked away into the mass of greenery in that meadow, or something ate it. Anyway, as I was looking for the caterpillar I found lots of other bugs, and almost my entire bug photography collection for today was taken in that meadow, probably not even 50 feet of path lined on both sides by walls of green. It was a pretty impressive collection of bugs for such a small space, and I didn't even get pictures of most of them. But here's what I got...

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

Dragonfly. This is a pretty unusual vantage point on a dragonfly for me.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

Damselfly

There were lots and lots of dragonflies zooming over the meadow, multiple species. 

So, what else did I find in the meadow? 

Lots of Orthoptera.

Katydid nymph

Grasshopper nymph

Another species of katydid nymph.

In case you haven't figured it out, Orthoptera is the order composed of katydids, grasshoppers, and crickets. I didn't see any crickets. I only got pictures of these few Orthopterans, but they were hopping all over in the tall grasses.

Carrion beetle

I saw dozens of butterflies in the meadow, in spite of the lack of flowers there, and, in fact, I saw them throughout my walks today.

I got a picture of this red admiral in the meadow. That was the only one.

 

 Thorn mimic planthopper (more on this later).

Leaf hopper. I don't think this is a candy striped leaf hopper, I think it is another species that is similar in markings but more subdued in color.

I continued my walk back to the house the long way 'round, and found a few more bugs:

Another dragonfly

Bee:

Assassin bug feeding on a plant bug

Robber fly
 

Just to show that sometimes caterpillars DO stay where they are for a while... We had to go out to run errands after my bug walk, and after I walked out the door I saw a caterpillar on a plant beside the front walk. I didn't want to go back in the house to get my camera while my husband was already in the car, so I figured, seeing the kind of caterpillar it was, that it would still be there when I got home. And it was:

It looks a lot like a swallowtail caterpillar of some kind, but I don't know which kind, and the knobs on its back end don't seem right for a swallowtail, unless this is such an early instar that it just doesn't look much like it is going to later.

 By the way, at least one of the baby birds in the nest on the back porch has hatched:

I saw this in the morning, but for the rest of the day the parent bird (I don't know if it's one or both that takes egg duty in this species) was on the nest, I assume hoping the others will hatch.

 Bugs from the last couple of days:

Or perhaps I should say nights, because on Wednesday it was horribly hot again, and I didn't go out for my walk until after dark. I didn't bring my camera, for obvious reasons, but since I found a cool bug when I was almost back to the house I went and got my camera, figuring, again, that the bug would stay put (and it did).

Backyard Bug of the Day (Night) from Wednesday, June 26:

 

Green lacewing. I saw several on my walk in the woods, all flying, which is a lovely thing to see by flashlight. But this tree had a few resting on its leaves. (All the pictures are the same one, though)

Feeding on a drop of honeydew 

Other Bugs Out At Night:

Small wasp with a long ovipositor

Caterpillar dangling from silk

Moth on the porch

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Seen in the meadow...

I found another thorn mimic, one for whom the thorn camouflage was not successful enough.

Mite

Weird Walk

 I had kind of a weird walk today. It started weird just because I went for a walk in the morning, so that I could enjoy a daytime walk when it wasn't 90º. It was in the low 70s when I started out. The temperature had reached the mid 80s by the time I got back. 

It was also weird because of some of the things I saw. Some were nice. But not all of them.

I guess we could start there, instead of with the bugs. Come to think of it, most of the weirdness happened in the same general area. Specifically, the bathtub in the woods.

I am going to warn you that part of this story may be upsetting and a bit icky.

I always check the bathtub these days to see if the frogs are having a pool party.

I am always happy when I see them there, and the more the merrier. At first glance I thought there were five frogs at the party today, four on the edge of the tub and one in the water...

But the one in the water looked strange... I thought maybe it wasn't a frog at all, but some floating leaves or something...

It was a dead chipmunk. 

I removed it with a stick, because I didn't think a rotting chipmunk would be good for the water quality, and I was talking to myself and the frogs as I did all of this, because, well, I talk to myself. And frogs. And while I was doing this I heard a noise down the hill from me...

... and I looked to see a doe and her fawn. Nice. Nothing weird about that...

... except the point when the mother started walking right toward me! I asked her if she knew I was there, because I talk to deer, too. She had to have heard me, I am a human, and I was talking aloud, and she was only about 30 feet away. She eventually seemed to realize what she was doing, and turned around, but she didn't flee, like I expected. She and her fawn just went back to whatever they were doing on the path.

Meanwhile...

I have noticed that in nature there is often not a lot of respect for personal space.

 After I left the bathtub I walked down to the small pond, and the mother and baby were still there, on the path. 

You can just make out the mother in the background. She is watching me, but again didn't flee or make a sound to call her baby (deer snort as an alarm call. I've heard this a lot. Normally deer find me alarming). 

Eventually the mother walked off through the brush, and the baby followed after another minute of staring at me. I didn't follow to get another look-you never know when a protective mother animal will turn aggressive.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Leaf-footed bug nymph. I love these nymphs because they look like they are made of sapphires. I was disappointed when I found out that they grow up to be plain black... until I saw and adult a few months ago with a damaged elytron, and saw that underneath the elytra and the wings they still have a blue body. Like they're wearing a party dress under a black coat.

Other Bugs:

A patch of fleabane... It may be bane to fleas (I don't even know if it really is bane to fleas), but other insects love it. You can't tell from this shot, but it was like a busy airport, with sweat bees zooming in for landings, taking off again, flying around...

And bees were not the only bugs, there were also these plant bugs.

Some kind of hairstreak butterfly. The iridescent glint on the edge of the wing is enticing, but I did not get to see the colors of the dorsal sides of its wings.

 I think these are beetle larvae:

They were tiny, so small I almost didn't see them. But I saw holes all over some grape leaves and looked to see what had created them.

 

Beetle

Another hairstreak butterfly

I found this buffalo tree hopper nymph dangling from a thread. They don't make silk, so I suspect it got caught in a stray spider thread mid-hop, and didn't have a way out of this predicament. It has no wings to fly yet, and isn't built for climbing. Anyway, I thought it might be dead, but I touched it to move it to a plant, just in case, and it was, indeed, alive:

You'd think in gratitude for being rescued it would pose for me, but it did not.

I spotted a dark smudge on the underside of a leaf, and decided to have a look at it through my lens so I could see it better:

Newly hatched lady beetle larvae

Most of those will not get a chance to become fully grown lady beetles, and for some of them that will be because they have been eaten by their siblings right after hatching.

But none of them went after this mite.

The fall webworm caterpillars I have been watching were all gone today, dispersed to continue their lives alone, but I did see one elsewhere in the woods, a bit bigger than the ones I had been observing for the past week.

Dragonfly

How good are your bug-spotting skills?

Moth on fern

Caterpillar

It can be frustrating trying to take pictures of bugs...

How many bugs do you see?

Whitefly

I think this is an assassin bug nymph.

Some kind of thorn mimic planthopper

Stinkbugs have pretty eggs.

And speaking of eggs:

Bits of birds' eggs are a regular site this time of year.

I sometimes peek at the nest on my back porch:

This morning the mother bird was not on it, and I was worried she had abandoned her nest, but she was back later. You can see that she has used a piece of plastic in building her nest.

No arachnids to appreciate?! How is that possible?