Bright sun

The tide was still running high.  In addition to a black swallowtail I chased with the camera, I saw a monarch, a red spotted purple, a cabbage white, a cloudless sulphur, a fiery skipper, and a southern purple mint moth.  A Carolina wren looked like it had lost its tail.  Brown headed nuthatches kept the feeder busy.  Hummers found their sugar water objectionable. 

Five frogs crowded into the skimmer and then led me on a chase all over the pool.  Drought-withered leaves blew into the water faster than I could catch them.  Still I managed to rescue a skink, a leatherwing beetle, numerous black ground beetles, and a wheelbug.  The wheelbug looked thoroughly drowned, but I left it in the sun and it soon recovered.  

Neem oil appeared to have cured the aphid infestation on the milkweed.  The fungus was still swelling.  A few carpenter bees and threadwaisted wasps continued to visit the mountain mint.  Peppers were growing next to the figs and the sunflower looked healthy. 

I walked around to see the orchard spider outside my window.  It was very hard to focus on a tiny object in mid air.  Later I got better pictures form inside, even through the screen.  The sun made the web glitter and the spider looked like it was made of green glass. 

A great blue heron occupied a piling in the late afternoon sun.  A yellow crowned night heron perched on the neighbor's dock.  Strangely, the wispy cirrus clouds appeared to be lower than the passing cumulus.