Catbird seat

A rather shredded red spotted purple visited the wild cherry leaves.  I found a cicada shell in the mulch.  A few wasps were hungry enough to ignore the breeze.  A few magnolia seed pods were splitting to show the red seeds.  Since it was too cold to swim, I pruned the witch hazel that was obscuring the view of the bluebird house.  K continued to cut away arbor vita.  

An egret took up residence on one of our pilings while mallards paddled past.  It is very hard to photograph a white bird in the sun.  The crows got upset about something, presumably a hawk.  I was annoyed at them because something carried off a nearly full tub of bark butter. 

I missed shots at a Carolina wren and a brown thrasher, but a pine warbler was kinder to me.  Then I spied a catbird in the beautyberry bush.