Lots of birds

More chickadees than usual tried to edge in among the cardinals and house finches.  So did a tufted titmouse.  A female goldfinch got a drink form the hummer feeder.  Meanwhile, a hummer checked out the morning glories but appeared unsatisfied.  Bees liked them better.  K said the full moon was setting when she opened the sunflower cafe.

A pair of doves poked through the mulch.  A male goldfinch showed up and the female returned.  Yellow butterflies - cloudless sulphur and tiger swallowtail - defeated the photographer as usual.  A hairstreak was too far away.  A damselfly hung around the pool till I tried to photograph it.  A gray tiger beetle ran across the patio.  I also glimpsed a young skink.  A brown thrasher scuttled under the cedar.  A squirrel ate dogwood berries.  The hummer feeder ran out of juice.

While there was plenty of blue earlier, the sky clouded up in the late afternoon.  I found the dragonfly nymph dead but may have seen another still alive.  It appears to be a wandering glider (Pantala flavescens) or at least something in the Libellulidae family.  The water was murky from my brushing algae so I cannot be sure about the second one.  The algae had gotten so out-of-hand that it made biofilms and when I brushed them off the pool sides they made green veils in the water.  I rescued a beetle and a wasp and found a feather.  The brown thrasher and the hummer came back.  Two wrens cussed at each other in a dogwood.  The spartina has begun to bloom. 

After dark the window became a bug magnet.  An angle-wing katydid looked huge.  Smaller stuff scurried around the glass.  Moonlight penetrated the clouds, but the moon itself wasn't visible.