Cooled off

All that rain yesterday lowered the temperature, but not the humidity.  The sky was clouded at breakfast but gradually cleared.

Titmice and goldfinches joined the regulars.  The goldfinches use the hollow behind the drooping sunflower heads to store seeds.  One of the several male house finches was feeding his fledgling who had two feather tufts on its head like a tiny owl.  A dove strutted around and the fledgling cardinal foraged in the mulch.  A squirrel repeatedly fell off the feeder onto a sunflower stalk but didn't uproot it.  K hung fresh hummer juice. 

A thin overcast returned, leaking occasional sunshine.  A red-spotted purple butterfly visited a sunflower, then rested on a cherry leaf.  A glorious Halloween pennant used a short perch.  The tallest perch was taken by a female slaty skimmer, and later a male.

A couple of skinks ventured out in the afternoon.  More dragonflies appeared.  A male cardinal wrangled a fat green caterpillar. A female hummer approved of the fresh juice.  The crows set up a screech party over some critter next door that they didn't like.  I never found the object of their derision, but I did find a cicada on the maple trunk.

Yesterday's rain filled the pool to the brim so debris didn't skim.  I found drowned beetles and a robber fly and another pink caterpillar.  The wren nestlings were big enough that I could heat them begging each time a parent arrived with food.  A brown thrasher foraged under the oak.  I saw one swallow hunting in the sky and heard more.  The high, thin clouds were moving slowly Northwest while lower cream-puffs hurried East.