Bugs and Butterflies!

I'm in Charlotte for a few days enjoying the beginnings of fall down here in NC.  I took a few odd pictures before I left the beach (where the weather forecast was also awesome for the week).  This is another of those Long Tailed Skippers although you can't see the long tail here but look at those colors for a normally drab small butterfly!  He was sitting on the lawn next to our hibiscus.

I thought he was a rather handsome insect even though he was intent on eating our hibiscus.  Warren shooed him away after I took this picture.  I am now collecting bugs of all kinds I think!  

He is a grasshopper of some kind -- maybe just the common green grasshopper.  An interesting factoid is that all locusts are grasshoppers but not all grasshoppers turn into locusts.

I call this one Robobug as it looks like it has a suit of armor on its triangular head  and is strangely robotic. Found on our third floor porch.  It is definitely an insect!  It is what is called a "true bug" and I believe is a Leaf Legged Bug.

I am hoping to get to the Raptor Center while I am here in Charlotte as I do love those birds!  In the meantime, I am reading, working on hand quilting and scanning ancestral pictures.  It is notable (for me) that it was just a year ago that I met Colin Firth the first time.  Too bad the movie he made in Wilmington still doesn't have an American distributor. Hope it doesn't go right to DVD years after it was made like his last American movie!