I haven't had a chance to blog lately, so I am a bit behind, but I haven't done a full bug walk in a week, so... I guess this is a catch-up post.
I don't really remember what was up, really... It's been hot, and my asthma has kept me indoors a lot, and the few times I have been able to get out to walk have mostly been night hikes. I always end up wishing I had my camera, but I keep not bringing it, because... night. Or rain. Or... well, mostly I have just been looking for bugs right around the back porch area. But I did do a full bug walk a week ago, so let's start there...
Backyard Bug of the Day for July 2, 2024:
Other Bugs:
Draonfly. I've seen a lot of this species lately.
The great spangled fritillary came back for more milkweed nectar.
How about some bug-spotting practice?
Can you spot the leaf hopper?
How about the tortoise beetle?
Tortoise beetle
Yeah, okay, those were all kind of easy...
Still lots of grasshoppers and katydids in the meadow:
The katydid is the smaller one. Both are nymphs. In fact, all of the grasshoppers and katydids I have seen so far this year have been nymphs, I think.
Some other kind of hopper nymph.
Lady beetle
There was a dramatic incident during my walk. A bug flew into my eye, and I naturally reacted by closing my eye, and then removing the bug. Usually this ends with the bug really squished and dead (and with me in pain), but today the bug survived this encounter. I pulled it off my face, and set it on a rock in front of me. And then...
I didn't notice I set it down right next to an ant...
But the ant noticed, and seized the opportunity... and the fly!
The ant grabbed on and started dragging the fly away...
The fly fought back at times–note the blur of the beating wings...
But the ant managed to subdue it. In the end, I think the ant won.
The fly had amazing eyes! I guess it just shouldn't have flown into mine.
I saw this caterpillar scurrying along... I didn't know caterpillars could scurry so fast.
Another dreaded spotted lanternfly nymph. One of their favorite things to destroy is grapevines, which is part of why they are such a problem, they are destroying vineyards. This one is on a wild grape vine.
Leaf-footed bug nymph:
An exciting update from the back porch!
I turns out that at least two more of the eggs hatched! One of the baby wrens has a several-day head start on its siblings, but there was a lag between the laying of the eggs, too.
Okay, so that was July 2 taken care of...
On July 4th I went for a walk, but didn't take my camera. However, I did go inside and get my camera when I saw something in the rock garden worth photographing:
Here's a two-fer, the butterfly that I brought out my camera for, and a wasp.
I was impressed that the butterfly just sat there while I went in for the camera, and then posed so nicely for me. Some kind of hairstreak, I am not looking it up. I really need to get a butterfly book...
Dragonfly, also in the rock garden.
The biggest baby bird kind of squashes its siblings out of the way, and is very demanding:
Then, the next day...
I didn't post a Backyard Bug of the Day on July 5th, but this is it:
Grape leaf skeletonizer moth. It is the caterpillar of this species that skeletonizes grape leaves; the adult (the moth) eats nectar like almost all moths. The milkweed flowers are very popular with many species of insects (hard to see here, but there were ants all over the blossoms).
A couple of hopper nymphs:
We had terrible weather on Saturday, July 6th, but in a lull I went outside an spotted the Backyard Bugs of the Day:
Huddled together on the underside of a milkweed leaf, milkweed tussock moth caterpillars. A few days old, I would guess. Monarch butterflies lay single eggs on milkweed, but the tussock moth obviously lays a mass of them. I have never seen an egg mass, but here's a mass of caterpillars.
Then I noticed a leaf on the back porch tree that had been folded and covered with silk, so I looked more closely:
One of the new baby birds
On July 7th I went for a night hike, but I took a couple of photos of the milkweed in the afternoon:
The reason I went to get my camera is because I walked by this plant and saw this grape leaf skeletonizer moth, a great spangled fritillary butterfly and two bumblebees on this same flower clump, but the moth is the only one that stuck around by the time I got back outside with the camera.
One bumblebee came back, though.
Not sure what this is...
On to... July 8th:
The milkweed tussock moth caterpillars developed quite a bit over the course of two days:
Aaaaand... on the back porch... the opening of the wrens' nest has been widened, but I don't know if the parents did that, or if the chicks did it because they are crowded in there. However, it makes it easier for me to see them:
And finally, July 9th!
I found another milkweed leaf with little milkweed tussock moth caterpillars:
These were even smaller.
Meanwhile, on the other plant, the older milkweed tussock moth caterpillars have dispersed. There were only a few left on the plant.
Meanwhile, on the back porch...
It's a little roomier in the wrens' nest without the biggest chick...
And that's a round-up of what I saw in my backyard for the last week! (Well, 8 days).
But also... Arachnid Appreciation:
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Gorgeous purple spider
I found some spiderlings!
From July 6th:
Spider on the living room window screen. The blue in the background is the hydrangeas in the rock garden.
This trashline spider built its web on the back porch, but it foolishly attached it to the door, so it got broken when I opened the door. Sorry, spider, I didn't realize you had done that, and I need the door to go in and out of the house!
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