Dragonflies

Overnight rain dropped the temperature.  A blue jay came for rain-softened barkbutter balls.  I took advantage of the pleasant weather to do some yard puttering.  Tiny, bright orange wolf's milk slime mold Lycogala epidendrum popped out of the end of a landscape timber.  There were eleven flowers on the orange daylily.  A Carolina horse nettle was blooming.  Parsley flower heads looked like fireworks bursting.  The first gladiolus spears appeared.

I spotted a dragonfly on a clump of dead leaves floating in the pool.  It didn't move even when touched so I figured it was dead.  I think it might have had a damaged wing.  In the afternoon, I found it floating on the surface of the water so I hauled it out and discovered it was alive.  My best guess is that it was a harlequin darner Gomphaeschna furcillata.  A female blue dasher kept watch from a dried up daffodil.  Lots of wasps were busy around the yard.  I rescued a bumblebee and a couple of beetles.  The forktail damselfly was again perched on the pool coping in the late afternoon. 

A soaring bird might have been a Mississippi kite.  An egret flew downstream.  The male pileated woodpecker came by to see if there was suet.  But even though I put out fresh sugar water, I didn't see a hummer.