You know how I sometimes have terrible days of bug hunting, and end up with very little to show you? This is not one of those days. This day was a whopper. I think I saw more species of bugs today than I have the whole week combined, and frankly, I am pretty surprised about it. The weather has been the same for a while, so why today was so different from the last few, I've no idea. We're on day 4 of our early season heatwave, which in this area of the world means three or more consecutive days with temperatures at or above 90ºF. It is usually accompanied by poor air quality, which for an asthmatic like me means that spending a lot of time outside is a bad idea, particularly doing any kind of exercise. But the bugs must be hunted! Anyway, I was planning to wait until very late in the afternoon to go looking for bugs today so at least it just be horribly hot, not unbearably hot, but when I went out in the middle of the afternoon to get the mail, for some reason I decided to veer off course to look at a bush that was beginning to flower, and discovered that there were a lot of bugs on it. So naturally I had to go inside and get my camera. Then I walked around a bit, finding a few bugs, and realized it wasn't
so bad out, because by that time much of the backyard was in the shade (I love trees). I debated going in to put on my tick repellent pants, because I really don't like to do my bug walk without them, but then it began to thunder, and I figured walking around in the backyard holding my monopod - in other words, a metal pole - was probably a bad idea, so I went in to wait out the storm. Which never happened. So... out to look for bugs. And I found quite a lot.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
Some kind of fly, obviously. Not in my book. Really, really tiny, and quite cooperative.
As for that flowering bush...
The flower longhorn was the first insect I spotted on the bush. There were several of them on the flowers (most of which flew away when I tried to get a picture of them).
This one was more cooperative.
There were also a lot of these Hemiptera nymphs.
And a couple of caterpillars. This one...
Here's a close-up of it, where you can see some of its eyes...
And this one, that was dangling from a thread, crawling its way back up.
Nearby is another bush of the same kind:
There I found a click beetle, and can you see the other bug in this picture?
Hint - there's another one in this shot.
Random Bugs:
Lately I often see caterpillars dangling from threads. I saw this one dangling, and then it dropped to the ground.
I saw three butterflies today, all different species, but I only got pictures of one, and they aren't very good. I haven't seen a spring azure butterfly in weeks, but there was one around the backyard today:
At least I think it was a spring azure. I didn't get a very close look at it.
In case you've ever wondered what a butterfly looks like in mid-flight.
Every night this week I have opened the window in the living room and there have been a lot of plume moths attracted to it. Unfortunately, when I close the window they get trapped between the screen and the window. Here's one of them, as seen from outside the window this afternoon (I do try to get them to fly away before I close the window, but it never works).
There are a LOT of ant colonies around the backyard this year.
Aphid nymphs
Aphid nymphs
Looper caterpillar doing a very good twig impression.
Beetle
I saw this hoverfly hovering, and thought there was something odd about it...
Then I got a closer look at realized that it was
two hoverflies, flying tandem. It was a most impressive feat to witness. I have seen lots of other bugs that are able to fly (or walk) while in the process of mating, but usually not this well.
Also impressive is the fact that I got these pictures. Be impressed. This was one of those times when I had my head in a pricker bush to get the shot. By the way, the weird larva I found yesterday is apparently a hoverfly larva. Probably not of this species, because it was a quite a bit larger than these flies, but there are many species of hoverflies/flower flies (I am not clear on the distinction between those two things, if there is one).
And unfortunate caterpillar. I think it may actually have been dead, but if it wasn't, that's probably worse.
Cranefly
Moth fly. A very tiny, hard-to-get-close-to insect. In case you're wondering from the name, it is a fly, not a moth.
Remember this from the other day? An Ichneumon wasp? Well, I can tell you what it has been doing hanging around this particular branch for the last few days, as it has been. You see, Ichneumon wasps are parasitic wasps. See that long thread on her abdomen? That is her ovipositor. I did some reading about these, and what they do is use that ovipositor to probe in branches (or other plants) to find the eggs of other insects that have been laid there. Then the Ichneumon wasp lays
her eggs in the other eggs, so her larvae can feed on the other larvae when they hatch.
And who else has been hanging around that branch all week? Lots of woodwasps. Something tells me that some of the woodwasps' eggs are not going to develop into woodwasps.
Moth
Aphid, I think
Weevil
Sawfly larvae
Aphids...
... being tended by an ant. Can you see that one of the aphid nymphs is extruding a drop of honeydew?
Tiny lady beetle with blue eyes. I wish I'd gotten a better shot of this, but it was fast and small - about the size of a sesame seed.
Arachnid Appreciation:
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Two spiders on the same web still.
