Clouds returned

Hummers breakfasted despite the coming and going of the seed eaters.  When I returned in the late morning, a female goldfinch was drinking from the ant moat in the hummingbird feeder.  A young skink crossed the patio in no hurry. After lunch a hummer settled into the dead dogwood twigs.

A blue dasher used one of the perches.  A butterfly sat on the orange beachball but it flew before I got a good look.  Others flitted around including one cloudless sulphur.  I saw eggs on the parsley, but no caterpillars there or on the rue.  The usual bees and wasps visited the herbs.  A flock of winged ants had landed on a leaf raft while others floated in the water.  A dead caterpillar also floated.  I don't know what it was, but it was long and slender, not swallowtail or monarch.

The spartina started to bloom.  And the chaste tree continued to put out the occasional spike of flowers.  The milkweed recovered amazingly fast - leaves were almost full grown.  The cloud cover broke apart at sunset and turned colors.  Fireflies came out before it was fully dark.  I do not remember seeing them this late in the year before.