Our first critter is actually an Amsterdam resident, photographed just before I left for vacation. This is a jumping spider, which are tricky to photograph because they don't hold still much. They also are sometimes inclined to jump at the camera, which, even if you like spiders, is a bit startling.

My first night in KC, there were a couple of longhorn beetles wandering around the glass door of the kitchen. The backlighting meant that I needed to use the ringlight, which is what gives the reflection on the glass.

At the swimming pool, my niece spotted this little guy. I think he's an assassin bug nymph. They have the name because they are predators of other insects, but they are quite capable of stabbing enemies with that long, sharp mouthpiece as well. It's best to stay on their good side, and handle them gently.

A longer view of the same bug, showing the mouthpiece in its resting position and giving a sense of its size. The jar is a peanut butter jar, freshly washed by the 10-year-old master bug hunter.

One last view of the Reduvid nymph, showing the black and white markings on its back. The Reduviidae family consists of about 7000 different species. In South America, some distant cousins of this assassin bug can carry Chagas disease, a nasty disease that is transmitted when the bugs bite people on the lips and face. The North American Reduviidae, however, are on our side -- they eat bugs such as cockroaches.

Some miscellanious ground beetle, trying very hard to hide from us.

It didn't work, though. My niece captured the ground beetle, allowing some photos in the jar. What I really like about this photo is how it captures the beauty of the bit of grit in the bottom of the jar. At life size you'd have never noticed the pyrite-like glint of the sand, nor the tiny pink rock in the bottom of the jar.

The yard was teeming with these little grasshopper nymphs. I particularly like how the reflection shows up in the photos.

This little guy looks ready to take on the world.

But he decided to just clean his eyes instead.

A sense of scale: this one perched on my niece's finger for a while.

This little beetle was about 1/2 a centimeter long. My niece identified it as a baby junebug... and maybe she's right. I think, though, like the ladybugs, june bugs pupate and thus would emerge as full adults from the pupa. (Our "june bugs," incidentally, are beetles of the genus Phyllophaga. We get the reddish-brown type that seem to enjoy nothing more than flying into solid objects with a satisfying "ting!!" then bouncing off, apparently unharmed, to do it again a few seconds later. Repeat until eaten by a puppy.) This guy certainly looks like a member of the Phyllophaga genus, whether or not it will one day grow into our familiar reddish-brown puppy toys.

Dragonflies are hard to photograph, as they are always better at watching you than you are at watching them. This one perched just long enough to catch a photo, although my niece was disappointed that she couldn't catch the dragonfly.

This butterfly, however, was much easier. If you look closely, you can see that its wings are tattered. It is probably nearing the end of its life, hopefully after laying eggs to make more black swallowtails for later in the summer.

For once, there are no bugs in this picture. It's just a simple photo of a thistle. Most people don't like thistles much either, but I find them quite beautiful.

This thistle, however, does have a bug in it. I'm not sure what kind; my niece called me away before I could tease it out. It is probably some kind of spider, hoping to catch one of the pollinators stopping by the thistle.

An adult grasshopper, hanging upside-down from a stalk of grass.

I wonder if the dragonflies land where they blend in? This one seemed to feel pretty safe on the piles of woodchips.

Just as we were leaving the field, my niece noticed this guy crawling around in the weeds. From a distance he looked almost like one of the cattails. He's *big* too, at least as long as my finger and bigger around.

At this size, he's likely about to turn into a butterfly, or more likely an Arctiid moth, which produces most of the wooly caterpillars.

Even in relatively bug-free Seattle there were a few subjects for the macro lens. This spider kept trying to crawl away, but its bulbous abdomen wouldn't fit through the cracks in the wooden table. This worked out well for the camera, as I was able to get several photos before it finally found a place to hide.

Eek! A human! This spider may be in the genus Steatoda, a group which can give a nasty bite but would prefer to eat other spiders.

Chris knows me pretty well. Upon spotting this bug on the door, rather than killing it or even shooing it away, he called me over to take its picture. It obliged by being fairly photogenic. I think it's a shorter-horned version of the longhorn beetle at the top of the page.

It looks back at the camera, debating the necessity of flying away. It eventually decided that I was harmless.