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 I saw a young rabbit on my way home.  That was about it.  Today, instead, I saw an egret perched on something sticking up out of Pretty Lake.  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.  

 

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.  

Flies and other fliers

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.  

 

Fierce heat

A crow got breakfast where K had scattered barkbutter balls on the patio.  I noticed it had some white spots on its right wing.  A mockingbird ate from the dish which I refilled.  So did a bluebird.  There was water in the birdbath from yesterday's rain and enough humidity to keep it from evaporating.  

The temperature rose so fast that I went swimming in the morning while there was still shade.  Storm winds had re-trashed the water with leaves, needles, catkins, bark, and unidentified tree fragments.  I rescued a bumblebee, a huge black ant, and three black beetles, but mostly I just kept sweeping up armloads of vegetative detritus.  

The thermometer registered 98°.  Only chickadees and titmice came out in the midday sun.  I also saw a few wasps and one tiger swallowtail, but no dragonflies.  Later in the afternoon, a fledgling crow begged outside my window.  Its parent was refusing to feed it but keeping an eye on it.  

At supper, a brown headed nuthatch joined the queue for seeds.  A Carolina wren shopped around the feeders.