Too many photos

The young cardinal stood around on the roof of the feeder looking foolish.  Eventually it dropped down to the perch to eat.  Its beak was beginning to change color.  

On my way to pick figs, I discovered a life-and-death drama.  A full grown tobacco hornworm caterpillar was thrashing on a ground-cherry stalk, trying to keep a parasitoid tachinid fly from landing on it.  Two more caterpillars were hiding out on a nearby stalk, hoping the fly wouldn't notice them.  I thought the fly looked pretty distinctive -- pale gray with red fore and aft -- but I didn't find a clear match online.  

The Argiope spider was still guarding the figs.  Two red spotted purple butterflies flitted around the fermenting fruit.  Green June beetles, bald faced hornets, and cicada killers slurped up fig insides.  I think another tachinid fly was enjoying fig juice too.  The whole area smelled like a brewery.  Mosquitoes and other small biters were thick even though a strong breeze funneled through.  On the way back, I spotted a little green bee but all three caterpillars had disappeared. 

I was so ready for a swim to wash off my hot, stick, buggy skin, but the pool offered another round of critters.  Twice I rescued a mama wolf spider and had to chase her away from taking a third dip.  I also very carefully rescued a Polistes wasp like the one that stung me when I moved a birdhouse she was using.  And, I found a small crab on the bottom which I was able to catch.  K kindly took the pictures since I couldn't get my hand far enough from the lens.  It had some odd markings and folds on the back and was missing at least one leg on the left.  I wonder if it was a soft shell? The back leg was a claw, not a paddle, so it wasn't a blue crab.  

A blue dasher occupied the perch by the red aster and another was on the perch by my window.  But the perch by the hibiscus had a bar winged skimmer.  I think a saddlebags flew overhead.  Bees and wasps worked on the mountain mint.  A thread waisted wasp splooted on the concrete!  A snout butterfly flitted around my head and later a duskywing did the same.  I don't understand the attraction.  A fiery skipper stuck to the mountain mint like a sensible butterfly. 

A female hummer chased a male away from her juice.  Blue jays dropped in for barkbutter balls.  A mockingbird appeared to be miffed at having to wait for a turn, especially since the blue jay took all it could cram into its beak.  I heard raptor cries and looked up to see three circling.  

A skink chased another across the patio.  I only got a picture of the chaser.  Maybe its regrown tail made it grumpy?  It's amazing that they can regrow the tail but cannot re-pigment it.  Another with a similar tail climbed the step wall later.  I stopped taking pictures around 1pm because I had well over three hundred.