Summer heat

Though this is no hotter than the last couple of weeks of Spring.  The first sunflower opened overnight.  The sakaki began blooming to the delight of bees and fireflies.  I noticed the chaste tree was blooming too, as I watered the transplanted azaleas. 

A black swallowtail took an interest in the rue and a tiger flitted through.  Saddlebags appeared in the late morning and a red Carolina saddlebags found a perch on a dead twig in a dogwood.

While in the pool rescuing beetles and a wasp, I found a pinkish caterpillar floating limply.  I wonder if it was the wasp's prey?  Also, while floating I observed papa cardinal feeding a fuzzy gray youngster in a cedar.  Mama cardinal carried nesting into a different cedar.  And the house wrens were all around.

Four twelve-spotted skimmers took over the airspace.  Appropriately for the first day after the solstice, I heard cicadas.  Three goldfinches (two were females) visited but wouldn't let me take a photo.  Big cumulus clouds sailed East in the middle of the afternoon, then the sky cleared, then it got hazy with faint pressure ridges.  Meanwhile the crescent moon moved from overhead to behind the roof.

In the twilight, as the sky went silver and the fireflies began to flash, the cardinals were still feeding at the sunflower cafe.