We constantly see large numbers of these little black insects on daisy blossoms. These are from July 12, 2014. The yellow center of the daisy was only about half an inch, so we can see that these are pretty small.
Pretty much every summer, we get together with a large group of friends at a site up north of here (which some of them own), that is covered with about 160 acres of “stamp sand”[1]. In 2014, this event occurred on July 5. While we were there, a group of people setting up an apparatus[2] noticed a hole about the diameter of a pencil in the sand, and looking down it they spotted something interesting. So they told me about it, and I came over with a little trowel and dug up this:
There is quite a lot of Timothy Grass[1] growing around our yard, and on July 3, 2014, Sandy spotted large numbers of these bugs infesting their seed-heads.
This was on the wall near our porch light on June 29, 2014, but I don’t think it was attracted by the light, particularly. I think it was just looking for a good crevice to pupate in. It was only about a quarter of an inch long.
We have some very elderly apple trees in our yard, and one in particular is pretty thoroughly hollowed out. Starting last year, we started noticing that the hollow part was getting stuffed with a mixture of dry grass and wood chips. Here’s what it looked like by June 29, 2014:
Sam caught this big sphinx moth when it came to our porch light on June 28, 2014. Comparing it to the palm of her hand, it looks to have a body nearly two inches long.
The coloration was pretty muted, with a couple of thin yellow “eybrows” visible in front of the incipient bald patch on the thorax.
On June 28, 2014, there were several of these fairly striking black-and-white-striped moths around our porch light.
The fairly intricate pattern of white stripes is pretty much a perfect match for the Little Virgin Tiger Moth, Grammia virguncula. The related Grammia speciosa is similar, but the lines on the wings are thinner, and the range map doesn’t show it living this far east.
I found this large insect mostly dead (it was still twitching) in the road on June 27, 2014.
By “large”, I mean about an inch long, as we can see by comparing it to my thumb and forefinger:
We were visiting Sandy’s parents down in Manchester, Michigan in the week before June 22, 2014. While we were there, they mentioned that they were concerned about a new (and rather unusual) wasp nest being built under the eaves of their garage. Since it was a new nest, it was not yet populated with wasps, so I just put a ziplock bag over it, sheared it off of the eaves with a putty knife, closed the bag, and popped it into the freezer for later. I then brought it home so I could photograph it with the bug camera.
And here’s a second type of nearly pure-white moth that came to the lights on June 12, 2014. It wasn’t very big (just a bit larger than a thumbnail).
From the way it holds its wings when resting, it looks to be a geometrid moth.