City Nature Challenge

The City Nature Challenge is a bioblitz using iNaturalist and running April 30-May 3.  So I went overboard and took 275 photos today.  But I also got lucky a couple of times.  The first was the pileated woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus.  Cardinals, bluebirds, and blue jays also showed up for breakfast.  I didn't notice at the time that the bluebird had a partly white tail.  The pileated female came back while I was outside and let me take more pictures.  I believe she has become more tolerant of us over the last several months. 

It was another hot, windy day with an intensely blue sky.  There were quite a few dragonflies but the big darners never stopped flying.  I got a single shot of what I think was a female blue dasher.  A damselfly was more cooperative.  It appears to be some kind of pond spreadwings.  There were lots of paper wasps and carpenter bees.  Finally, I found a narcissus bulb fly.  They were thick last year. 

I saw several tiger swallowtails but only one let me get a photo.  And I found a couple of first instar black swallowtail caterpillars.  I took a lot of plant photos, many of which I discarded because I wasn't sure if domestics counted. I went around to the fig to take pictures of the moss but I will have to do that another day.  

A gray catbird, Dumetella carolinensis, was foraging in the moss.  Usually they are quite skittish, but this one let me take many photos.  I didn't hear any catlike sounds but the wind was awfully loud.  I never got a picture of the Carolina wren though it made many visits to the feeders.  I saw a downy but no red bellied woodpecker.  There were crows and starlings, of course.  An egret landed but I guess I was too close for comfort.  The hummer did not return while I was watching. Nor did any skinks.