Praying mantis

When I left home for an appointment, a Cooper's hawk flew across the street right in front of my car.  A bluebird thought the breakfast selection lacked something, so I hustled out with more barkbutter balls.  Then I decided to check on the plants.  A lone goose hunkered down by the shoreline.  A gray toadstool looked freshly emerged.  I could see many little green figs The female common whitetail dragonfly preceded me, unless there are more than one around.  

A green praying mantis crawled through the clover.  *I moved it closer to the peppers. There were flower buds on the coral honeysuckle.  The green blueberries were swelling nicely.  There were numerous spiders walking on water. 

A male great blue skimmer was back on a bamboo perch.  A large, intimidating fly turned out to be a flesh fly and thus not a biter.  I was too late to rescue an assassin bug nymph.  Leatherwing beetles met up on the parsley flowers.  

We replaced the suet that the birds had with eating with a hummingbird feeder.  A male hummingbird tested but left quickly.  And the lighting gave him a black throat, not a ruby red.  While I was in the water, a small, pale moth fluttered erratically into vegetation, pursued by a female cardinal trying to catch it in flight.  

At twilight a small mallard family gave the dog some exercise.  In addition to the male and female adult ducks, there was a half grown duckling.