Sunday Stills has gone buggy! I think I got lucky this week and found mostly pretty bugs…
Some sort of brown spider… I see them in the garden a lot; we usually call them Daddy Longlegs but I think they might be something else. Anyone here a spider expert?
One of the numerous ladybugs farming aphids in the thistle plants around the compost piles. I didn’t even notice until later, when I loaded the pictures, that he had tiny dew drops on him.
Found a male Stream Bluet resting – hunting? – in the middle of the mud puddle that serves as the tadpole pond.
Red-Shouldered Ctenucha. I’d never seen this moth before; I thought it might be related to the Cinnabar moths, since some of the young caterpillars are munching on the leaves above it, until I looked it up and discovered it had a bright blue body (this guy kept his wings closed while I was watching).
Female Twelve Spotted Skimmer
Male Twelve Spotted Skimmer.
Male Variegated Meadowhawk. The dragonflies really seem to like this particular post, which is in the middle of one of our field gates, though I’m not sure why. I went out a couple times today armed with the camera and hung around for awhile but nobody wanted to pose. I saw at least five or six zooming back and forth over the hay field but couldn’t keep them in the frame long enough to get a decent shot of them in flight!
A young Orb Weaver and her – his? – catches.
