Warm

At breakfast, the creek was smooth and reflective but the surface seemed dull, perhaps from pollen.  A brown headed nuthatch was an early visitor to the seed feeder.  Its feathers looked slept-in -- maybe it was molting.  A male red bellied woodpecker came next.  The nuthatch made repeat visits.  At lunchtime, a mockingbird wanted suet.  A bluebird went for barkbutter balls as did a blue jay.  A crow stuck to suet crumbs.  I found a good sized bird nest in the crape myrtle which I suspect might belong to mockingbirds.  A Carolina wren wanted barkbutter balls bad enough to ignore me as I sat outside. 

A little orb web had picked up all manner of dust and detritus which made me think it was abandoned.  There was a cast exoskeleton in the corner.  The rue was blossoming and a Guinea paper wasp, Polistes exclamens, was feeding.  As usual, cabbage whites roamed the yard, but I also glimpsed a brownish butterfly and a couple of smaller butterflies that might have been Spring azures.  The sky was very blue in the morning, hazy with clouds streaming East after lunch and overcast by suppertime. 

The beard lichen continued to reassure me about air quality.  Hickory leaves were an incandescent chartreuse.  Yellow and blue irises, yellow coreopsis, and little coral lilies bloomed in the back yard.  In front, the false indigo sent up spikes of pea-like blossoms.  Plenty of berries bent the blueberry canes.  A mushroom emerged next to the juniper and the cap cracked, exposing the gills.  It has not been a good Spring for mushrooms.