Rain at last

The morning sun was pretty fierce but thick clouds kept rolling North so the UV exposure was intermittent.  I didn't see any wildlife till I headed out for a swim in the late morning.  The female common whitetail was back. A robber fly had seized what looked like a housefly.  Yay for insect predators! 

The maroon daylily had seven flowers.  I rescued two mama spiders each with a pearl full of eggs bigger than the mother.  They resisted rescue, but they were sitting on the handle of the skimmer basket so I insisted.  Leafcutter bees and other insects fed on the butterfly milkweed flowers that were half hidden by the mountain mint.

Meanwhile the clouds were getting more frequent, darker, and more ominous.  I saw a dragonfly with spotted wings zip overhead.  A wasp approached from beneath the foam of a spittlebug on a mountain mint stalk.  I don't know if it was after the larva, or what.  The all-black bee reappeared on the milkweed.  A bumblebee visited too, and a little sweat bee. 

A male goldfinch sought a drink from the ant moat.  The water was a good inch below the rim - remember this.  An egret stalked upstream. That caused me to notice that the sassafrass came back. 

Yesterday someone predicted a "drenching thunderstorm," a meteorological label I had not heard before.  The prognosticator was off by a day, but this afternoon we did indeed have a drenching thunderstorm.  It saved me from having to water.  It refilled the ant moats and washed the guano off the mountain mint that sprouted too close to the barkbutter dish.  

Speaking of which, after the rain passed a female red bellied woodpecker reluctantly ate mushy barkbutter balls.  A blue jay followed.  I missed catching bluebirds, a Carolina wren, and a brown headed nuthatch on camera. Hummers visited but stayed on the far side of the feeder.  

In the evening I startled a mockingbird.  A snail on the patio headed for cover.  A small slug had ascended the wall part way.  I began to feel bugged and went inside to type this while fireflies signaled outside the window.