I believe these are Florida Predatory Stink Bug nymphs. I don’t know if they killed this cicada or found it already dead. Either way, their late-night feast created an eerie scene on the fence.
I am an amateur at identifying “true bugs”. Please comment to correct or confirm this ID!
At sunset, sphinx moths arrive for another feeding in the ginger lilies. They drain the flowers’ day-long accumulation of nectar, then move on. Around midnight, they return for the nectar that has been produced since nightfall.
I’ve seen a few different species of these hovering moths in the yard. The moth in the following photos is either a Carolina sphinx or a Five-spotted hawkmoth, but I can’t decide which. Any ideas? (Maybe it’s neither?)
The moth in this video is a Pink-spotted hawkmoth.
Yesterday morning the rabbits crowded into the opening of their nest, obviously bothered by the heat. After an afternoon thunderstorm blew through, two of the babies couldn’t resist the cool, wet grass. They spent over an hour exploring, which gave me plenty of time to catch a few photos and video clips…
At first, they stayed in the long grass immediately surrounding the nest. After a while, they grew bold enough to cross an expanse of shorter grass and investigate the ginger lilies and fence.
They returned before twilight, but I doubt they’ll spend many more nights in the nest.
The yard is littered with cicada molts. Dozens of them on the fence, in the irises, in the roses, and hanging from trees. They fall into cobwebs and sway in the breeze. Then the wind sweeps them away, making room for new waves of emergence.
Is it like this every year?
Have I been so blind? I don’t want to believe it. How could I have missed such a glorious swarm?
What’s more, how could I have walked past a cicada caught in a spider web without stopping to stare? I found another one today. This time the web belonged to a much smaller spider than yesterday’s garden giant.
I believe this summer has produced an extraordinarily large population of cicadas, though I have no proof.
For that matter, much of what I believe can’t be proven. So I’ll go ahead and say it with confidence–this summer has produced an extraordinarily large population of cicadas.
(Here’s a clip of the noise they make, their “song.” It’s loud, so you might want to reduce the volume on your speakers before playing.)
This year the ginger lilies have sheltered and fed four enormous garden spiders. Mid-summer, this impressive quartet graduated from eating flies and began to catch moths and beetles. One of them even tried for a June bug. The June bug escaped, but the spider was in no danger of starvation.
Thanks to our mild winter and productive summer, the spiders’ webs are never empty. They eat and grow, eat and grow, molting over and over again as the summer wears on. Now they are giants, far larger than any of the yard’s June bugs.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fascinated by the variety of prey these spiders have snared. A Cloudless Sulfur butterfly, last week. A sphinx moth and a dragonfly. Yesterday, one of the spiders managed to catch and consume a cicada.
Despite my affection for cicadas, I had to admire the spider’s audacity. And, despite my wretched arachnophobia, I softened into nostalgia over a large egg sac. (The egg sac belongs to a different spider, one of equal size and appetite.)
I remember a dark living room with an old television, where a little girl sat curled in a chair with a cat on her lap and a dog at her feet, watching a favorite movie. The movie featured a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte. I remember my tears, when Charlotte died, and my delight when her daughters emerged from their silken nursery.
So this year, late in November, I’ll cut back the ginger lilies and weave their stalks into a frost-protective blanket over the bulbs. In the process, I’ll tuck this egg sac into a safe corner of the flower bed, cringing a little as I imagine the multitudes within. Then, thanks to a lovely book and heartwarming movie, I’ll remember that these spiders aren’t quite horrible. In fact, they are almost charming. Especially when they say “Salutations!”
Rae Spencer 