Red-Banded Leafhopper

Today I was very excited to see my first Red-Banded Leafhopper.  I've seen these beautiful tiny insects in photographs on line, but I had never seen one "in the field".  I actually saw one in the shrubs in front of my own house.  I really wondered how I could be out so much and not have seen one.  Now I can check it off my list.  However....I did not get a good photo of it.  It is so small, and I had my 300mm lens on the camera and was backing up as fast as I could, but of course, the one photo that I got was not crisp, and it kept moving and flew off before I could get a good one.  Some day!  Their coloring is impressive!

Red-Banded Leafhopper

The other thing I was seeing a lot of today, in both my yard and at Breakneck Hill, was flying Wooly Aphids.  These look like little tiny bits of cotton floating in the air.  They could easily be mistaken for a seed of some plant, but if you put your hand out and catch one, you can see the wings and body.  They are pretty neat looking.  Again, not the right lens for such a tiny insect.  And they are extremely small compared to the leafhopper!

Wooly Aphid

The Northern Cardinals were back at the grapes in front of my house again.  Just wasn't my day for photos.  I had to take it through the window, and the glare detracts from the scene.  How pretty though. The red bird, the purple grapes, and the fall leaves.  Lovely!

Northern Cardinal

I also had Yellow-Rumped Warblers moving through the trees out by the brook.  No good photos though.  Lady beetles were crawling all over the front of the house today, too, and were widely reported on line around the state by others, too.