Under a gray sky the creek was flat and still. A song sparrow came early to poke around the birdbath. Soon the goldfinches arrived, then the nuthatches. After breakfast, the sky began to clear.
The Prince Baskettail Epitheca princeps dragonfly I found yesterday had disappeared so I don't know if it revived or if it was recycled. The sun helped me get better pictures of the spiny-backed orbweaver which was clearly dead since it had not moved. Other living dragonflies took up their duties. Slaty skimmers perched and blue dashers obelisked. I watched something tiny and white that I wasn't sure was alive or just drifting on the breeze till a blue dasher snatched it out of the air. Higher in the air, a Carolina saddlebags patrolled. A living prince baskettail was up there too.
The usual suspects crowded the mountain mint. I do love watching the great golden digger wasps fidget and twitch as they feed. They also pose nicely. One landed on the black feeder hanger and turned all gold against that background. It only wanted to wash its face. I noticed that some wasps have hammerheads like the shark.
The ailanthus moth was back along with fiery skippers and a red-banded hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops. There were lots of flat-tailed leafcutter bees. What I thought were small sand wasps were feather legged scoliids. The bee with woolly legwarmers is Melissodes. The solid black bee is a carpenter-mimic leafcutter bee, Megachile xylocopoides. A green Junebug scarab beetle flew up into the maple. Turns out it's actually a green fig beetle. A big robber fly landed beside me with its catch. A skink with a replacement tail marched across the step. Later a skinklet with a red head and blue tail came back the other way.
A hummer gave the goldfinches a scolding. She found a perch in the wild cherry. A blue jay lurked in the dogwood.
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