Warmer

The absolute temperature may have been no higher than yesterday, but the wind was much milder. I finished the newspaper sitting on the front patio and a hummer visited the feeder.  I could see strands of spider silk everywhere but no webs or spiders.

At lunch, titmice were still working hard.  K saw something that may have been a bluebird.  A little green heron landed on the dock.  A blue jay investigated the feeder. Wasps and soldier beetles crowded around sweet flowers but the bees liked lavender better.  A small orange-brown butterfly visited the roses.  Yesterday's dragonflies were nowhere to be seen. 

Later, I went out and almost tripped over a skink.  It seemed quite curious and came very close and climbed the wall beside me.  A "tow-boat" came upstream with a neighbor's boat at the end of a thick rope.  That startled an egret and a mallard family.  Then I saw a red eyed vireo!  The pool skimmer was full of spiders with long black front legs like claws.

A singing wren called my attention to a big nest up in the pine.  It could be a squirrel's.  Geese tried to invade but I sent them away, and their goslings two.  A titmouse preened on the hummer feeder hanger.  It was very thorough and very funny. Dark clouds made dusk come early and brought out fireflies. Then thunder.