Butterflies

A hungry hummer came for breakfast.  She wasn't pleased with other birds coming and going to the seed feeder.  A sprinkle of raindrops fell.  The day was mostly cloudy with weather coming out of the West.  I sat outside after lunch to watch and listen to the wildlife.  Assorted bees and wasps fed on the mountain mint.  I focused on black bees with a blond fringe, gray striped bees, and little leafcutters.  A blue mud wasp joined the many great golden digger wasps in the twitchyness contest. 

Fiery skippers, a gray hairstreak, a cabbage white, and an American snout butterfly fed on the mountain mint.  An aging monarch and a sleepy orange, Abaeis nicippe, drank from the butterfly milkweed.  The monarch had lost a lot of scales so its wings were getting transparent.  A photo revealed an ailanthus webworm moth, Atteva aurea.

The downy woodpecker worked on old mushy barkbutter balls.  A couple of brown headed nuthatches got away before I was ready.  I heard the goldfinches but they stayed in the trees.  A great blue heron perched on a post and a great egret flapped past. 

More dragonflies than I'd been seeing appeared today.   Female slaty or bar-winged skimmers, a male slaty, and in the water, a prince baskettail.  I hauled it out to photograph and to see if it would revive.  I also hauled out a spiny-backed orb-weaver, Gasteracantha cancriformis, for the same reasons.  It was the less common red form.  

I had taken the risk to go swimming despite the weather prediction.  If I hadn't I would have missed the spider and the dragonfly.  But the clouds got darker, the wind stronger, and the light poorer, so I went indoors.  However, the rain didn't arrive till around 6pm.  It came down so hard I thought it would dig holes in the concrete.