Pleiades

I did get up before dawn (thanks, K) and saw nine meteors in a half hour.  Then I thought the sky was getting lighter and mosquitoes were beginning to wake up, so I didn't wait for a tenth.  The meteors were as bright as the brighter stars but the streaks were quite short.  They all seemed aimed between North and West, though that could have been because I was on the North side of the house, trying to block street lights.  The sky was clear after all but so washed out from lightscatter that the visible stars were few.  I thought a bright one to the East was a planet, but it may have been Sirius.  

When I finally got up for the second time, the morning was well advanced.  The seed and hummer feeders were busy, but not the mealworms.  I saw a great crested flycatcher in the redwood and a brown thrasher in the cherry.  Later a couple of the brown thrashers chased through the grass. 

A drowned cicada that had never molted into an adult was drifting in the pool.  I suppose it must have fallen while climbing to a good molting spot.  I rescued quite a few bees and wasps and a couple of beetles.  After I got out, a robber fly perched on one of the bamboo stakes.  There were dragonflies and butterflies but they did not cooperate with the photographer.  The argiope still haunted the marsh grass.  Several great blue herons flew over and one fished downstream.

I believe I counted six blue jays at lunch plus a black bird that I couldn't identify.  In the afternoon a flock of robins flitted from tree to tree along with the blue jays and the black birds.  I saw a Carolina wren in the dogwood above the creek.  A hummer tried the butterfly weed but left quickly. A skink scurried across the lower patio.