Breezy

Sunshine competed with cloud cover and the wind seemed stronger than the weather service reported.  The catbird and the house wren were up early, or perhaps I was up late.  Lots of egrets were out fishing and a great blue heron battled a headwind going upstream.  Squirrels were getting into trouble.  Downy woodpeckers, titmice, Carolina wrens, and hummingbirds visited the various feeders.

This was the second day I saw small, pale birds fling fast and low, and acrobatically over the creek.  I don't know if they were terns or swallows or what.  I saw a couple of skinks, but got no photos.  Butterflies flitted around but I'm not sure what all of them were, besides a cabbage white and a palamedes swallowtail.    A female common whitetail dragonfly landed on the patio. 

I believe I heard a mockingbird pretending to be a host of other birds.  A male hummer tasted the flowers outside my window, then whizzed away.  Goldfinches found something interesting in the salt bush.  A yellow crowned night heron stalked along the bank. Yesterday, someone said they heard a blackpoll warbler, and today I believe I saw it. The house and Carolina wrens and the catbird hung out together in the late afternoon.  The sky went from hazy to white but there were flashes of sun from the West. 

While we ate supper, a tufted titmouse and a downy woodpecker had a claws out fight over the feeder perch.  And the titmouse won!  Heretofore, titmice have given way to every other species, even smaller birds like chickadees.  A small egret fished below the dam around sunset.  I could not tell if it was a snowy.