Hot & sticky

Apparently more rain fell in the night but the sun was out in the morning.  Bluebirds came for breakfast.  I was slow getting outside and the temperature had reached 80°.  A baby praying mantis was still guarding the strawberry planter.  A paper wasp sat on a mountain mint leaf.  A daylily bud looked ready to open.  A fitful breeze made little impression on my comfort and none on the creek surface.  By the time I had planted eight sunflower seeds, sweat was dripping off my nose so I retired to the air conditioning.    

An orange butterfly was too fast for me.  It did not pay attention to the milkweed so I don't know if it was a male monarch or some other kind of orange butterfly.  There may have been a few dragonflies but I couldn't be sure they weren't wasps.  Birds flitted through the tree leaves - I think one was a goldfinch.  There were at least three blue jays.  

K came up with more outdoor work that bathed me in sweat.  As I recuperated inside, the cardinal pair acted their rom-com.  He landed on the feeder, she on the hanger above.  And she waited.  When it was past time he should have offered her a seed, she descended by increments to see what was keeping him.  He was stuffing himself, so she tried to land beside him.  But the feeder is calibrated to close at the weight of two cardinals (or one blue jay).  So the perch tipped them off and they both left.  I hope she gave him a good scolding.  

The sky stayed hazy with many clouds blowing out of the West.  I hope it's not too cloudy for the eclipse.  A Carolina wren found where I had spilled barkbutter porridge attempting to drain off rainwater.  The wren happily helped itself.  A male red belied woodpecker came for suet.  The suet had got turned so that I couldn't see smaller birds like the nuthatch but the woodpecker was too big to hide.  I went out afterward and turned the suet around.  

The eclipse is supposed to begin at 10:30 and be full at 11:30pm and last into Monday.  The May full moon is at perigee, its closest approach to Earth this month.  Apparently perigee does not always coincide with a full moon, but neither does an eclipse.  And the shadowed moon is supposed to be reddish because of Rayleigh scattering.