Sunshine!

There were still a lot of clouds but I was grateful for every moment the sun got through them.   A hummer found the feeder but was too anxious to perch.  I wondered if it was a tourist migrating South rather than one that nested here.  Downy woodpeckers availed themselves of seeds and barkbutter balls.  A white breasted nuthatch was gone before the camera was ready but brown headed nuthatches were more cooperative.  

High tide over-topped the dock.  When it receded, mallards moved in.  They looked bedraggled and the males were in eclipse.  I glimpsed a small bird in flight that might have been a kingfisher, or something else.  Southern purple mint moths were everywhere.  A red spotted purple danced through the trees.  It amazed me at how easily those colors disappeared against green leaves.  

The fungus no longer looked appetizing, more like moldy bread.  I had a good, if chilly, swim.  A skink, a mama spider and her spiderlings, and two crickets got a second chance at life on dry land.  Vast quantities of leaves and needles clogged the skimmer, floated on the surface, and sank to the bottom.  I heard a red bellied woodpecker but didn't see it. 

When I got home from a meeting, I went back outside.  A couple dozen gulls flew over. headed Northwest.  It was impossible to be sure but they might have been laughing gulls in winter plumage.  Three young mockingbirds feasted on beautyberries.  I knew they were young because their eyes had not yet turned yellow.  

A rustling in the dogwood turned out to be a red eyed vireo.  It seemed curious about me.  A rustling in the undergrowth might have been another, but all I could see was a belly in shadow.   A hummer monitored all this from the top of the wild cherry.  The boy cardinal came back, still begging his mama for food.  The kid was a bottomless pit.  Poor worn out mother.  A great blue heron flew up into the pine behind the hackberry where the vegetation mostly hid it.  Sunset cast a warm caramel glow on the clouds.