Rain on a warm wind

Despite that, it has been very warm.  Bees were out to feed on the rosemary and lavender.  A flock of mallards paddled downstream.  The squirrels appeared to have lost their warbles while we were gone, but they still looked scarred.  The moonflowers, morning glorys, roses, marigolds, and camellias were all blooming.  The dogwoods all turned red and the redwood and hickory bronze.  But no songbirds visited in the morning.

A downy woodpecker was on the suet before lunch but left as soon as I saw it.  A male house finch ate seeds for a while during lunch.  Afterward I heard, then glimpsed, two Carolina wrens.  But, I noticed a pine needle floating between the camellia and the sakaki and deduced a spider.  Sure enough, a fat barn spider (Neoscona crucifera) was eating the web. When it saw me seeing it, it scurried up a thread and hid under a leaf.  The leaf, however, was above me and useless as a hiding place.

Later, a small bird grasshopper bounced all over the patio and even climbed the window.  Geese paddled by and a heron flew over the creek.  There were moments of sun but mostly rain clouds speeding North on a very gusty wind that never really dried things out.  High tide came around midday and was really high, mostly due to the moon, I think, since the wind came from the South.