A friend brought her dog over and Andy shed six of his twelve years to play with her. At one point as they were romping outside,one of them startled a skink that shot across the patio in a blur. As we sat and talked, all the birds came by to tease me for trying to be polite and not take pictures while entertaining company. I saw three brown headed nuthatches, three or four bluebirds, cardinals, house finches, chickadees, and titmice.
After they'd gone home and I'd taken care of a promised article, I went swimming. The first thing I saw was a big skink suspended vertically a few inches below the water's surface. I assumed it was dead and took hold of it to dispose of it. It wasn't dead and my touch brought it out of suspended animation. In the air it wasn't quite as big, but it was full grown. Since I'd left the camera indoors, I let the lizard run off.
Multitudes of wasps and bees fed on the mountain mint. I identified the large wasp with the red rear as Scolia dubia, the two-spotted scoliid wasp or blue-winged scoliid wasp, a predator on green June beetle larva. I believe I saw a swallow. I definitely saw a black swallowtail. The usual mysterious rings of ripples appeared next to the shore of the creek. And it looked to me like there were oysters growing on the bulkhead. I got some pictures through the window of the venusta orchard spider. A glass snail crossed the patio despite the heat. A blue jay watched from the oak.
No comments:
Post a Comment