Back in August when I put up the first yard round up for this season, I warned you there’d be more and here it is! Most of these photos were in the can when that post went up, but I spared you. I’ve been taking the flash and the LED panel out with the macro and so there is a mix of light sources with all of these.
We’ll start out with this cute little immature grasshopper –
The poor wee thing kept trying to hide from me on the salvia, but I just couldn’t leave it alone without trying for a few photos. I think it’s a Short-winged green grasshopper, but some folks on iNaturalist disagree and say it is a Two-striped grasshopper. Either way it was very cute and very scared so after a few photos I left it to its own devices. I love how it’s hugging this flower, surely in need of some comfort from this giant thing that insists on getting too close. It’s about 2 cm long, just shy of an inch.
Sorry for the unnatural setting for this lovely girl and her egg sac. She was on the garage which is where I’ve seen another of her species a year or two before. They must like garages. It’s a Nursery web spider and this time I didn’t use a flash, but only natural light since it reflected pretty nicely off the siding. I think she was scoping out a place to weave her namesake web, but ultimately I think she chose elsewhere since I never did see her or any of the babies. Nursery web spiders do exactly what their name says; they make a web that the spiderlings stay in when they hatch. From my observation of a different species on my dock over the years, the babies leave the nest after their first molt.
You can see how she carries the egg sac more clearly in this next photo. There are lines of silk connecting it to her spinnerets and while it is stuck to her I don’t believe she eats since she is a ground hunter and doesn’t use a web to catch prey. When she weaves her nursery web, she does so around the egg sac and then will open it so they can emerge. She stands guard over them until they disperse. She was almost an inch long from head to tail.
More reproduction on display with this pair of bluets I found nearby while sitting on the dock. Luckily I could angle myself so most of both bugs is in focus. The female is underneath and is having her eggs fertilized by her fellow. He will keep her in his tail claspers as she lays the eggs, warding off other males who will try to mate with her. Shortly after both will die. Damselflies are some of the most short-lived of the Odonata order which are pretty fleeting as a group.
More bugs on the deck! I think this is a Flat-headed apple tree borer, but again someone disagrees on iNaturalist as to the exact species. It’s less than 2 cm long. I used an LED panel on a flexible arm attached to the hot shoe to light these.
Whatever it is I’d never seen one before and it really did have that flash of neon green under the elytra. When it took off the green was a flash in the wings and it was gone. According to my beetle book this is a female; males have green faces, too.
Sorry for another unnatural setting, but this little skimmer was cold while it sat on the dock so didn’t fly off when I got the camera up close. Those eyes!
From what I can tell, this is a male and female together which must mean a mating attempt was imminent. That might be a sperm packet the male has ready there and will wait for the right moment before presenting it to his lady. They are cobweb spiders and very, very tiny. Both appeared sort of brown without the light and to the naked eye. Only when I got the image into Lightroom could I see the color difference well. It’s a stack of two images if memory serves.
Another spider so small that I thought it was a bit of debris and at first, a jumping spider. I don’t know what kind it actually is, but it clearly isn’t a jumper. It’s about 2mm long IRL and taught me to really look at the basil leaves before harvesting.
More spiders! This time two incredibly tiny crab spiders. Both are only a few mm long and the first is perched on a fleabane daisy which is about 1/2 an inch across. I have no idea what the other bug is or if it’s dead or alive, but little crabby was ready and waiting for another lunch.
This next one is a hair bigger and on a black-eyed Susan. These flowers are popular with crab spiders, but I fear this one was too little to survive here. After a few days seeing it, I never did again. The front garden is also popular with spider-hunting wasps and it may have fallen prey to one of those. But before all that I got to spend a little time admiring its tiny, but determined stance. Comparing it to the one above, I think they are different species.
As small as this bee is (about 1 cm), it was too big for the diminutive crab spider. She was doing a little grooming after having a snack of nectar. I love finding wild, native bees on my plants. These flowers are very popular with all kinds of wee ones.
My first time seeing one of these impossibly cute and tiny bugs – probably 8mm long and not happy about my presence. In Germany it’s called the “Büffelzikade” which means Buffalo cicada, but it isn’t really a cicada. It’s scientific name is Stictocephala bisonia or sometimes Ceresa bisonia. Was so lucky to find it and that it was patient before finally flying away to safer ground.
Here’s a different species of the same type of bug; a tiny tree/leaf hopper (3-4mm), possibly an Alder spittlebug (Clastoptera obtusa). It’s even smaller than its green cousin. I told you these flowers are popular.
And one more leafhopper I believe. This one was very small, too, and kind of fuzzy. It was on the downward curving part of a petal and I had a really hard time getting the camera positioned so you could see it clearly. It isn’t a perfect blend, but I used 2 photos for this shot.
Update! It’s a Metcalfa pruinosa – Citrus Flatid Planthopper
One more and I’ll let you escape. Speaking of escape, this one had a narrow one. I saw it struggling in the water while I was sitting on the dock so I fished it out.
It’s a Linden borer (Saperda vestita) which is a type of longhorn beetle. It’s about an inch long and seemed to be just fine after being rescued. Aren’t those antennae amazing?
So that’s it for now. The beauty of being a macro photographer is that a quick stroll in the yard or a few hours in a nearby nature area can yield so many good images. Plus I’ve been deliberately using the flash and the LED panel to broaden possibilities. Many of the photos here would have been very difficult or flat-out impossible without them so I’m glad that I decided to add them to my kit.
Very nice closeups on some very skittish subjects.
Thanks, yes some of them were pretty unhappy with me.
I had to stop looking at the first spider! Otherwise, loved what I saw.
Aww, my poor girl. She’s lovely to me. I’ve gotten past my one nature phobia and that’s to do with wasps and hornets. I picked one up the other day. It was sluggish and I had gloves on, but still, years ago I’d barely have been able to be in the same room with one.
It’s funny what bothers us – for me, anything that moves suddenly – like a spider – gives me the creeps. Bees and wasps have never bothered me!