Humid

At breakfast, the windows were fogged which was strange because the temperature was the same inside and out.  I guess the air was so humid that it wet every surface.  As the outside temperature rose, the glass cleared.  The young cardinal photo-bombed a picture of a Carolina wren.  Wet-looking clouds passed over but no more rain fell.

In the afternoon, I covered myself in bug repellent which may have worked because all I encountered was a mosquito attracted to my face.   A blue dasher dragonfly watched from a high twig on the wild cherry and later a slaty skimmer used one of my perches.  Bees and wasps and one cabbage white bustled around the mountain mint.  A few honeybees came back.  A black swallowtail passed through without showing interest in parsley or rue, so I figure it was a male.  Ants crisscrossed the patio but one seemed to move oddly.  Sure enough it was a spider, a small woodlouse hunter. 

A couple of white breasted nuthatches took turns at the seed feeder, in between finches and cardinals.  Hummers visited the fresh juice.  The balding blue jay ventured to eat mealworms while I sat outside dripping.  Another watched longingly from the dogwood.  A female goldfinch checked the sunflower for any forgotten seeds. 

I saw several skinklets hustling across the patio.  Why do they think they need be over there and then a few minutes later over here instead?  I was surprised in the evening to see two fireflies blinking under the maple.  It seemed very late in the season for them.