Cool

At times it looked like rain and then the sky would clear completely.  Ever since the flooding rains, the creek has been a milky brown.  Egrets continued to haunt the dam outfall but today they had to compete with a great blue heron.  A dove foraged below the feeder. 

When we got home, a buzzard buzzed the house.  It or another harassed a great blue heron at the dam outfall.  Mallards paddled around.  The yellow crowned night heron came back in the late afternoon. 

A couple of monarch butterflies dueled over the milkweed.  Three big spiderwebs protect the yard.  The argiope built in front over the dry stream.  On the West, a barn spider used the bathroom window.  And further along toward the bench, a very strange web appeared to be hyphenated with thick and thin areas and center rays.  It was the work of a spinybacked orbweaver Gasteracantha cancriformis.  White mushrooms popped up in a couple of clusters near the webs.  I found a couple of potter wasp pots on the wall - much more elegant than mud dauber wasp nests.