July, August and September are the time of insects

     The warm months of July, August and September are the time of insects in abundance in the Middle Atlantic States.  They've had time in the warmth of summer to develop and are most obvious when seeking mates, making fields, pastures and lawns more interesting.  Following are brief accounts of some insect species that are most noticeable and interesting in this area.
     Fireflies are at their peak of courting through the first half of July.  Soon after sunset each evening, male fireflies climb vegetation and fly slowly while regularly flashing the cold light of their abdomens as they go.  As darkness gathers, the multitudes of lightning bug flashes are enchanting across fields and lawns, and in the woods. 
     After dusk during July and later in the summer, thousands of small, brown moths are noticeable in car headlights along country roads.  Those moths hid among roadside vegetation during the day, but became active when the sun goes down.  They visit flowers to sip nectar through the night.
     During this time a variety of dragonflies are common around impoundments, while bluet and black-winged damselflies are abundant over ponds and along smaller waterways, respectively. 
     The larvae of both dragonflies and damselflies live in the water as nymphs where they catch and eat small invertebrates on the gravelly or muddy beds of ponds and waterways.  Dragonfly and damselfly larvae change to adults in summer, eat flying insects, mate and lay eggs back into their birth bodies of water. 
     A variety of bees, butterflies and other kinds of insects sip nectar from many different species of blossoms, and in greatest abundance during August and September.  Those insects visit alfalfa and red clover blooms in fields, joe-pye weed and ironweed flowers in sunny wetlands, common milkweed, goldenrod and aster blossoms in fields and meadows, and the flowers of butterfly-bushes and summer sweet shrubs in suburban areas.     
     The males of tree crickets and other kinds of crickets, a variety of grasshoppers and a few species of katydids begin stridulating every evening late in July and continuing their mechanical sounds until heavy frost in October.  These related insects make chirping, trilling or buzzing sounds by rubbing their wings, or wings and legs, together depending on the kind, to bring the genders of each species together for mating.  They provide interesting outdoor entertainment for us each evening through late summer and into autumn.  And each species can be identified by the noises it makes. 
     Male annual cicadas begin whining from the treetops sometime in August.  They trill off and on all day, but are most persistent in the evenings.   
     Annual cicadas spend a year in the ground sucking sap from tree roots.  Then over a few nights in August they emerge from the soil, leaving little, round holes in it, and climb vegetation and other objects.  At some point they stop climbing, the back of their exoskeletons split and adult cicadas crawl out of those larval shells.  Their wings pump out and by morning they are flying. 
     Male cicadas have horny flaps under their abdomens that make buzzing trills when they vibrate.  That sound brings the genders together to mate, and they are another sound of late summer and fall.
     Praying mantises get large and become mature in September.  Up to six inches long, they look like monsters when in flight.  They have eaten a variety of invertebrates since their hatching in the middle of May.  And by October they are mating.  Each fertilized female lays scores of eggs in a foamy mass she creates on a vegetation stem.  The foam hardens and protects the embryos from weather and some predation.  
     Monarch butterflies migrate southwest to Mexico during September and October.  Those migrants are the fourth generation of monarchs of the year. 
     In March, north-bound monarchs leave certain forests on mountains in central Mexico where they wintered.  That generation travels north a couple hundred miles, mates, lays eggs on milkweeds, the caterpillars' only food, and dies.  Two more generations of monarchs do the same after moving farther north.  But when the fourth generation of monarchs matures as butterflies, they don't mate and lay eggs, but rather drift to Mexico for the northern winter, arriving at the same forests where their great grandparents wintered, even though the current southbound butterflies had never been there.
     Yellow jackets become a nuisance during September.  They are abundant then and they sense the approach of autumn, which probably makes them more eager than ever to get sugary food.  So they join picnics and other sources of food, which people don't like. 
     Yellow jackets are wasps that have papery nests in the ground and entrances in the soil to those homes. Their relatives, the bald faced hornets, have paper constructions in trees and on buildings.  The homes of each of those insects have papery cells in them where the larvae are raised.  Adults of both kinds sip nectar from flowers, but feed insects they paralyzed to their larvae. 
     Late in fall, the fertilized queens of yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets drop out of their nests and burrow into the soil to live through the winter.  All workers and drones of both species die, however. 
     Female box elder bugs form masses of themselves during warm afternoons in September and October, on tree trunks, stone walls, fence posts, buildings and other objects that could provide shelter for those bugs through winter. 
     Each of these bugs is dark with red markings, making them attractive.  All summer they had suck sap from twigs of ash-leafed maples, also known as box elder trees.  But starting in September, they stop feeding and look for places to spend the winter in comparative safety.  Many people consider them to be a nuisance, but they are harmless.  They don't eat anything all winter and they don't bite or sting.  I guess it's just their great numbers that frighten some people. 
     Watch for these insects this summer and fall, or succeeding ones.  They make the outdoors more interesting.