Warm sun

Egrets, both great and snowy, hung around the dam outfall.  Hummers competed for time at the feeder.  A skink somehow got up on one of the tables and went round and round trying to figure out how to get down.   

I found a skink floating and lifted it out without insisting on pictures.  There were lots of crickets in the skimmer so I gave them each a twig ride out of the water.  Shortly after that, the biggest cricket came racing back, hotly pursued by a skink.  Not the same skink - this was larger.  The cricket jumped into the water and the skink nearly followed.  I'm not sure if it was the water or me that caused it to slam on the brakes.  A smaller cricket climbed on me and I freaked out thinking I felt a spider.

I'd been hearing kingfishers now and then and today I saw two of them whiz down the creek.  They were much too fast for me.  Blue jays were up in the oak but I think it was a squirrel that kept dropping acorns in the water, 

A slaty skimmer buzzed me in the pool and later I saw a wandering glider dangling from the parsley.  A black swallowtail flitted between parsley and rue. The beautyberries were beginning to turn.  The sky began to grow cloudy around 6pm and was overcast by dark. 

Clean up

Enough rain fell to interest egrets in the dam outfall.  The creek was placid with autumn-like reflections and the air was cool enough for fall.  But I'm not ready for summer to end.  Titmice and chickadees kept the seed feeder busy.  A pair of goldfinches also visited the feeder but were gone before I could think of getting the camera.  I saw first a male, them female hummingbirds at their feeder.

 As I was cleaning the pool, a flock f mallards gathered on the creek.  The pool had many drowned spiders, which creeped me out.  K saw several skinklets but I finally saw one and it revealed another as it ran past.  I also noticed an acorn that got snagged in the maple tree.  An argiope web covered much of the bathroom window.

Stormy

The Northeaster we'd been having was joined by a tropical depression moving up from the South.  I had a white-knuckle trip into Norfolk for a 7am meeting.  The rain tapered off by the time I headed home and we had a couple of not-too-bad hours,

Of course the hummer feeders flooded.  And by the time we got fresh out they were very hungry.  A couple of young skinks ventured out, briefly. I found a snail on a bracket fungus.  And a slaty skimmer hunted from a perch in the dogwood. 

Egrets hung out by the dam outflow.  The water was still high from wind and then a couple of inches of rain. Then the rain came back followed by roaring winds.  Power flickered toward evening and I pictured a night in the dark, but we got lucky.

Gray

The cold wind from the Northeast made waves on the creek and pushed the tide higher.  The hummers continued their turf war.  Chickadees annoyed the smaller hummers and the larger cardinals and titmice.  Squirrels snacked on dogwood berries and one raided the watering can.  A dove got huffy about the squirrel.  There were a few insects but they didn't linger to be identified.

Windy

Morning was sunny with a cool wind.  Several birds looked disheveled from molting.  I got a glimpse of a ragged wren.  Hummers kept up their battles. 


The afternoon got very windy and grounded many insects but some butterflies held their own.  The black swallowtail was still busy passing on her genes.  A red-spotted purple soon disappeared, but a painted lady made forays off the oak leaves.

From one spot I could see the lake and snowy egrets perched on a fallen tree.  I was on my way to a closer look at the argiope spiders in the marsh.  They were getting blown around. The one in the middle already had an egg sack hanging on a groundsel bush. 

Several saltmarsh fleabane plants were in bloom.  I was worried when they didn't come back last year.  The wind had pushed the water up around them. Virginia buttonweed's little four-petaled star flowers dotted the grass near the water.

Around 4pm a dark bar of cloud began coming at us from the Northeast.  It brought rain about a half hour later.  I tried to stick it out and keep on cleaning the pool but the rain seemed to be getting harder and the wind was like a gale.  But by the time I got my suit off, it had stopped.  Oh well. Large clouds continued to flow overhead on that cold wind until it was too dark to see. 

Cool

It was a beautiful day, if a bit cool for swimming. Hummers were up early.  An egret fished under the bulkhead.  Titmice and chickadees squabbled over seeds and a blue jay raided the mealworms.  I took advantage of the lower temperature to plant the succulent I bought.  The beans I planted had a few orange (not scarlet) flowers.  A fiery skipper hung out on the lantana.  Skinks were underfoot.  I saw more dragonflies and butterflies today.  A red-spotted purple made touch-and-go landings on the water.  All three argiope spiders seemed to be doing well. 

We got back around 4pm.  A wren buzzed in the shrubbery but disappeared before I returned with the camera.  I found a fresh batch of caterpillars on the indigo and a cicada shell on some stonecrop, not a very high place to metamorphose.  While I watched the front hummer feeder, two hummers inspected me. 

A male widow skimmer was perched on the mealworm feeder in back.  A black swallowtail laid eggs on the rue, then posed next to the dragonfly.  A hummer kept watch on the feeder.  A painted lady perched on oak leaves.  Fluffy, somewhat shredded cumulus flowed out of the NNE under higher, thinner cumulus slowly moving up from the WSW.  A duskywing looked quite pale in the sunlight.

Scary weather

There was a downpour after breakfast.  The sun came out for lunch but around 4pm dark clouds rolled back in.  There was a severe weather watch, but we only got sprinkles by dark  And at least we didn't have Harvey.

Doves have been around recently.  Some squirrels scarfed up the nasty seeds that K dug out of the feeder while others went for dogwood berries.  Blue jays preferred acorns.  They all made a mess.  Titmice stuck to feeder seeds. 

The hummer guarded her feeder even though it was dry.  K swapped it out.  There were mad chases all through the day.  Small skinks scooted around the patio but none fell into the water today. 

I found three argiope spiders in the marsh grass, fairly evenly spaced.  I didn't see any dragonflies in the yard, just out driving.  A cloudless sulphur flitted over the pool. Several painted lady butterflies danced in the air, courting or competing.  I wasted a lot of pixels trying to photograph their flight.

Later in the afternoon, a great blue heron perched on the neighbor's floating dock.  Eventually it flew to our dock, then hopped down to the floating platform.