Gray skies

The hummer was irritated by the regular seed eaters.  But she got right on the refilled feeder and started packing juice away.  I glimpsed the blue jay with a bald head on top of the post.  A downy slipped in for breakfast.  Three squirrels alternately climbed around the feeder and chased each other.  And a tiger swallowtail tasted a rose. 

The sun appeared and a black swallowtail and a cloudless sulphur showed up around noon.  The hummer argued with a snout butterfly that wanted the same perch in the dogwood. The sulphur was into red flowers but a palamedes swallowtail went for orange milkweed. 

A Carolina wren stopped by but disappeared into the morning glory.  I watched a small monarch caterpillar come down from a denuded milkweed stalk and hike across to another plant which was nearly as far gone.  A couple of caterpillars tussled on the end of a stalk, but at least two big ones were gone.  I rescued a spider that was new to me but was too late for a skink and a cicada.  Big bumblebees worked on the rosemary and the lavender.  A blue dasher perched on the short stake. The clouds returned in the late afternoon.  A flock of crows made a lot of noise as they patrolled the neighborhood.