Cool

The temperature overnight crept below 70°.  Morning felt cool and damp, in part because a large, heavy cloud seemed stuck overhead.  Once again there were two frogs which I caught.  I have been persuaded that they are young bullfrogs.  In addition, there was a half-grown grasshopper in the skimmer, which amazingly revived.  When I tried to urge it away from the water, it shot straight up into the air.  Is it "pronking" if an animal has six legs?  

A few beautyberries were beginning to blush.  A tiny wasp drowned in the one-hole hummer feeder.  The hummers did not approve.  They were happy when a fresh feeder appeared.  The squirrel was back but, alas, I had no peanuts.  A black swallowtail hunted for parsley, of which there was none.  It shamed me into going to the nursery and buying a pot full.  Toward evening, a little flock of eight mallards gathered on the creek.  The males were in eclipse and only their yellow bills indicated their sex.  

 

Beautiful weather

The day was sunny and warm enough with a breeze and low humidity.  In the morning the sky was so blue it seemed to have a tinge of purple.  I found two live frogs and a dead amberwing dragonfly in the pool.  A glass snail may have been estivating.  A tiger swallowtail egged the cherry but I got only glimpses of other butterflies.  The camera caught a snout and a mint moth.  I heard a goldfinch and then it alighted for a drink.  But the second I moved, it was gone.  I fed a few peanuts to the squirrel with the tuft of pale hair.  It had scratched bare spots around its neck, maybe warbles.  

A blue dasher perched on the rosemary.  One hummer vigorously defended "her feeders" from another.  The mountain mint was no longer attracting pollinators and even the milkweed wasn't getting much attention except for very tiny insects.  Cicadas sang at least three different tunes.  I suppose I could use my phone to record and ID them.  A Carolina wren indulged in barkbutter balls.  A skink and I spotted each other on the steps and it disappeared immediately.  

Hummingbirds

The wild blue morning glories were blooming when I replaced the low-hanging hummer feeder.  When I went for a morning swim, three frogs awaited me but two hopped away and only one dove into the water.  I caught and released it on land too.  A black swallowtail egged the gone-to-seed parsley and a dragonfly flew fast over the water while I swam.  I found a tiny, pretty beetle afloat but it never revived.  It was about the size of a ladybug but not so round.  iNaturalist identified it as a shield-backed cryptocephalus, Cryptocephalus mutabilis.

A hummer came to the little feeder but did not stay long.  Maybe rainwater diluted it?  A tiny orb web hung between the feeder and the post.  Later, a hummer visited the 3-hole feeder and still later, two hummers argued about it.  

As I dripped dry, I noticed ridges in the clouds coming from the Southwest.  They were perpendicular to the wind direction, sort of like ocean waves.  They're classified as altostratus undulatus clouds.  A red spotted purple rested on a dogwood branch.  A little skink followed the edge of the concrete to cross the patio but on the way back it took a shortcut.  A downy woodpecker hung below a branch it was hammering in the section of the dogwood that lost its bark and died.  A titmouse fussed because I was too close to the seed feeder.  

 

Sunny day

The day was quite warm but the breeze made it very pleasant.  A female downy woodpecker had a seed breakfast.  A Carolina wren also visited.  Hummers found the new feeder, which was fortunate because the old one was empty.  (I'll put the other out tomorrow.) There were at least two hummers because I saw one chase another away.  I spotted one preening in the wild cherry.  

A  bird circling very high was a Mississippi kite. Another, I think, was a vulture.  Again, there were two frogs but they didn't put up much of a chase.  I rescued a spider from a mostly submerged twig.  The pool steps had a lot of drowned greenhouse millipedes.  A cicada's cast-off shell was lying on the patio.  I also found some cicada wings that had been discarded by whatever ate one.  There were plenty left to sing in the afternoon sunshine.  

The sky was mostly clear blue with clouds being hurried along by the West wind.  Occasionally, they cast sunbeams against the upper atmosphere.  I saw skinks of all sizes running errands and basking in the just right temperature.  Alas, they always dodged out of sight when I moved the camera   A blue dasher kept my space clear of small fliers.  

The butterfly milkweed had more pods developing than I have ever seen, probably because it wasn't feeding any caterpillars.  I think wasps got them.  Tiger swallowtails flew around the trees and a dark butterfly swooped through closer to the ground.  I saw something that might have been a snout heading into the dogwood.  A strange feather blew around the patio.  I thought it was white till I caught it and realized it was half black.  It was a big body contour feather so it came off a large bird, possibly the kite?  

 

Warmer

The day got warmer than predicted and stayed humid.  Cloudy periods alternated with burning sunlight.   A heptagonal orbweaver spider with red legs and a yellow abdomen tried to take possession of the door and another dangled over the pool steps.  I found two grown skinks basking, one by the pool steps and the other by the deep end.  The skink by the steps disappeared into a crack but later it emerged and ran across the concrete with its head held high.  Two frogs were hiding in the skimmer but I chased them down.  

I found another praying mantis castoff exoskeleton afloat.  There were mosquitoes, but nothing worse.  A blue dasher was standing watch when I came outside and a bigger dragonfly glittered in the sunlight when I got out of the water but I never got a good look at it.  A third skink wanted something behind my chair but didn't stay there long.  I saw a weevil sitting on a chair arm.  A titmouse watched from the dogwood.  As we ate supper, there was a flash and a loud crack of thunder, then nothing.  Sometime later a light rain began.   

Rain again

Yesterday's rain left the air much cooler but very humid.  Morning was relatively sunny, what I saw of it.  It was distressing that all week I kept having morning meetings and afternoon rain.  My only photos were of the juvenile cardinal.  The sun was still shining when I went swimming but I saw dark clouds coming and it wasn't very long after I got out that the rain began.  There was one frog in the skimmer and it took itself off immediately, so no chasing.  Instead, I rescued a pair of green June beetles that were so busy mating, they hadn't noticed they'd fallen into the water.  They finished what they were about before I could get a photo.  

 

Thunderstorm

The sun was hot when I went out to swim.  I caught four frogs and found another cast exoskeleton from a praying mantis floating on the water.  But clouds boiled up in the Southwest and ten minutes after I came inside, the storm arrived.  The rain waxed and waned through the afternoon, finally finishing before supper  Enough rain fell to bring the water level to the top of the skimmer opening.  The fledgling cardinal was hungry by then.  The sky cleared around sunset leaving a golden band of cloud.