Monarch butterfly!

Since we had not yet had a freeze, a little green pepper was still slowly growing beside the garage.  In fact, the day was quite warm and I found I was overdressed and sweaty when we went for a walk at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. There were plenty of roses still blooming at NBG so I guess my yellow rose was not an anomaly.  I looked for lichens to test my new field guide.  There were some but not the profusion I expected, perhaps because of the proximity to the airport.  An orange crustose lichen had colonized the bridge.  I thought there was also a surprising lack of wildlife - no ducks, songbirds, or squirrels that I noticed.

We took a different route that ran on a boardwalk beside a lake. The lake margin was swampy and there were some young bald cypress.  I found a lovely white flower on a leafless plant.  When the walkway left the lake, it passed by a little pond stocked with Sarracenia pitcher plants.  Then we came out into an open expanse and that's where I saw the monarch.  It flitted across the field and I didn't see it land, so no photo proof.  On the walk back I spotted some mushrooms with pink gills.   

At home, I wandered around the yard, still seeking lichens.  A squirrel sunbathed on an oak limb.  Turtles did the same on their log.  A pelican flew upstream but I missed it.  I found a wasp's fuzzy gall on an oak leaf.  A small spider with red legs waited on the front door frame. (I need to clean the webs off the door.) I wondered if it was alive but when I blew on it, it moved.  The fatsia was blooming and feeding honeybees and yellow jackets.  I found a Guinea paper wasp Polistes exclamans resting on a fallen leaf.  All the invertebrates might explain why the birds weren't as interested in the feeders. 

Warblers, pine and yellow rumped, sought suet while white throated sparrows scrounged what fell.  Bluebirds got their share of barkbutter balls.  A squirrel posed and begged.