Empty threats

I slept in and didn't see anything in the morning.  But the afternoon made up for it.  Hummingbirds drank and drank, packing on the grams.  The brown headed nuthatches couldn't get enough of the fresh sunflower seeds.  The hibiscus was still performing.  

When I got outside after lunch, the sky looked like rain was imminent, but it was an empty threat.  A red spotted purple butterfly, Limenitis arthemis astyanax, fancied cherry leaves.  It gets three names because it is a subspecies.  The other subspecies is the white admiral up North.  Coincidentally, the red spotted purple is also an empty threat - it evolved to mimic the poisonous pipevine swallowtail.  One stalk of the newly planted milkweed was coated with milkweed aphids.  I was hoping for caterpillars. 

When I opened the skimmer there were three frogs.  One hopped away but the other two pretended to be invisible.  When I came close with the camera, one dived and the other hopped out.  Eventually I caught up with two in the water and flipped them out.  A glass snail was under water on the top step so I put it on the concrete in the shade.  Later I found another on the upper patio.  I rescued several beetles including one big Junebug that was more bronze than green.  It was nonetheless iridescent metallic like the green Junebugs.  It kept lifting its elytra (stiff forewings) to flick water out of its hind flying wings.  

I wasted many pixels on dragonflies in flight and only got blurred images.  Soaring birds kept distracting me.  I think they were Mississippi kites!   They seemed to be having fun with the gusty West wind. 

Megachile bees nectared on both mountain mint and butterfly milkweed.  A venusta orchard weaver had a lovely orb web outside my window.  I also found the sheet web that attracted my attendion the other day.  Something ate a lot of ground cherry leaves, probably a hornworm, but I couldn't find it.  A duskywing skipper stuck to the mountain mint.  Several skinks bustled along on their business and I startled one that was sunbathing along the steps.  

The sun set in a blaze of orange.