Wind

A bright and beautiful day was chilled by the strong East wind.  Torn fragments of cumulus flew across the sky, only rarely interrupting the intense sun.  A female bluebird competed with house finches for seeds.  The male pileated woodpecker returned in the morning and the female in the afternoon.  A Carolina wren had the feeder to itself.  A hummer considered the feeder and passed.  A titmouse and a blue jay enjoyed the barkbutter balls.  What might have been a small hawk chased after a cardinal, but I wasn't sure what I was seeing and got no photo.  

A few dragonflies hunted despite the lack of humidity that would have brought out their prey.  One of them was a male common whitetail that landed so briefly I missed it.  A lot more butterflies were flitting about.  I saw a tiger swallowtail, a dark butterfly that was probably a red spotted purple, a small golden butterfly I'm guessing was a sleepy orange, a pair of snouts, a monarch, a duskywing and a fiery skipper.  

I took clippers to the morning glory vine that was climbing the rose and the rose bit me, causing me to drop the clippers.  While trying to fish them out from under the rose, I discovered the sixth Argiope.  It was midway in size between the one that I've been watching and the little one that popped up two days ago.  I suppose it might be one of the ones that disappeared from the mountain mint.  My pruning also disturbed a skink.  

 While I was cleaning up all the tree detritus the wind was dumping in the pool, that wind shifted around to the Northeast.  I alternated between toasting in the sun and chilling in the shade.  Only one beetle needed rescue.