Friday, August 6, 2021

A second beautiful day

In the late morning I decided to pick blueberries.  The rain had revived them and I got nearly two pints, but many were mushy so those went into jam.  I saw some sort of bug zipping between trees.  An osprey sailed overhead.   Then a tiger swallowtail landed on a dogwood leaf in the sun.  It's had a rough life - there were nips out of its wings and one tail was missing. 

After lunch, brown headed nuthatches arrived.  So did downy woodpeckers.  A blue dasher kept an eye on things while I attended Zoom meetings.  Only one turtle soaked up sun warmth. 

 When I finally got in the pool, the water was still high and cool.  I had hoped the sun would have more effect.  A spider mother-to-be took fright at me and dashed across the water clutching her pearl full of eggs.  I had to rescue her before she got sucked into the skimmer.  I also rescued a sidewalk tiger beetle, a little brown click beetle, and a big green June beetle.  Then, in the deep end, I found a young skink swimming for dear life.  So I carried it back to the shallows and took some pictures.  I saw a brown thrasher, but I had my hands full. 

After I got out and dripped for a while, I spied a leaf in the oak that wasn't a leaf.  It was the hummer that can't find the feeder.  A blue jay checked out the knothole next to the woodpecker holes, the same spot the nuthatch investigated earlier.  Meanwhile, K had picked figs because rain was in the forecast. Bees were very busy with the mountain mint but wasps were scarce. 

I sat outside in the twilight and saw a bat!  There was no moon as the waning crescent will rise in the early morning, and haze obscured the stars.  There weren't any fireflies either, just crickets stridulating. 



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