Rain

I woke up to rain which was welcome because this year has been too dry.  A female pileated woodpecker pecked at the suet during a lull.  The rain stopped  before lunch and a family of awkward fledgling titmice came for seeds.  The sun came out in the late afternoon.  A skink ambled along a timber.  

Widow skimmer

I first saw the dragonfly in the front yard yesterday as I drove in.  But when I took the camera to look for it, I couldn't find it.  This morning as I dripped after swimming, it was in the back yard fighting a strong, gusty wind.  I picked the first blueberries, only a small handful. A brightly colored stinkbug flew off of the bush.  A largus bordered plant bug was drowned.  Lots of scarab beetles and one black ground beetle survived dunking.  I had hoped the wind would keep biting bugs away but one got in my face and I may have drowned it.  Birds were scarce.  

Too much running around

Yesterday the money plant pods were fully dried and ready to disperse seeds.  A green pod appeared on the milkweed.  The sky was mostly cloudy.  I saw a young rabbit on my way home. Today, instead, I saw an egret perched on something sticking up out of Pretty Lake.  

At home, a Carolina wren visited the glass dish.  A mockingbird followed but the crow stuck to the easy pickings off the patio.  I rescued many beetles but left alone a yellow fly, a bit bigger than a housefly but the same shape.  The New England aster began to bloom and there were tiny pink buds on the beautyberry and the mountain mint.  I saw a skink but it hid behind foliage.  Wasps were busy.  

Pleasant

Today was cooler, sunny, and very nice.  Nevertheless I waited till late to swim because biting flies terrorize me.  I saw damselflies and rescued very large ants.  Spiders took care of themselves.  Dragonflies patrolled the sky.  

Flies and other fliers

In the morning a brown thrasher visited.  A bluebird investigated the blue dish and found a tidbit.  The furnace heat returned.  I was tabling again, this time mid afternoon on a hilltop.  Fortunately we had a tent.  An ambulance came for someone a few tents away.  Thunderheads crowded the horizon, but nothing happened before I left.  The car thermometer crept up to 100 on the way home.  

K said I looked bedraggled.  I got into the water and soon felt better.  And I rescued a damselfly.  It perched on my finger and used its long abdomen to unstick its wet wings.  Then it flew.  A beetle I rescued also flew away.  Other rescuees may not have made it.  There were more beetles, flying ants or sweat bees, and of course spiders. A blue dasher kept watch from a low perch.  As I sat to drip off, I was attacked by a Tabanid fly, a deer fly, I think, as I didn't see green eyes.  So I dashed dripping indoors.  Not too long after that, we had a short rain shower.  

Pileated woodpecker

Temperatures in the 80s were a relief.  A female pileated woodpecker visited and hopped on the patio.  They are not built for walking.  I wonder if it was the fledgling?  At lunch a mockingbird visited.  Afterward, I had a swim and evicted a few beetles and an indignant spider.  A tiger swallowtail flitted overhead.

Then I went off to help table at an event at the zoo.  I didn't visit the zoo's animals but watched an aerial ballet of dragonflies.  Crows gathered on the dead top of conifer, maybe a spruce.  As we left at twilight, a rabbit dashed across the walkway.  I saw some swifts picking up the insect patrol as the dragonflies retired.  But I was plagued with fleas or noseeums out in the grassy field where the tables were.  I had forgotten to spray myself before leaving home.  

 

102°F

After waiting to swim till late in the afternoon, I rescued a lot of beetles and a few spiders, including one woodlouse hunter.  The beetles were mostly black ground beetles along with one scarab.  A damselfly watched from the pool edge but paid no attention to a fly.  A squirrel drank from the ant moat.  A crow bathed on the top step of the pool.