More birds

Yesterday's thunderstorm brought little water but did moderate the temperature.  A Carolina wren inspected the cinquefoil for anything tasty.  Mockingbirds continued to harvest wild cherries.  A section of the oldest dogwood appeared to be dying. It looked fine all through Spring and early Summer.  Another section died a few years ago.  The mountain mint was stressed by the drought but seems to be recovering.  

The pool yielded nothing but scarab beetles, roaches, and itty-bitty wasps/bees/ants.  A fresh load of cherries were sunk on the bottom.  I did evict one spider.  A duskywing joined the bees ans wasps on the mountain mint.   One funny, little bee did its best to intimidate me.  I found the Argiope which was quite cleverly camouflaged as a stem.  The orchard spider was in the same place as before but the light was wrong to see the web.  

A female hummer visited that feeder.  Then a pine warbler considered the hanging dishes.  The brown thrasher returned for more cherries.  A white breasted nuthatch was frustrated by a house finch.  Then when it finally got on the feeder perch, a chickadee landed on top of it and the finch attacked them both.  

Thunder

I had a lot of running around town before I could swim.  In the water with me were beetles, tiny bees and wasps, two bumblebees, and too many spiders.  One soon-to-be-mother perched on the twig I had propped on the ladder as an escape route.  She clutched her pearl of eggs with her back legs.  As I dripped off, a hummer visited the feeder.  A brown thrasher, a mockingbird, and other birds visited the cherry tree.  Another hummer tested the milkweed and the roses for nectar.  

The mountain mint hosted carpenter bees and leaf-cutter bees, thread-waisted and scoliid wasps, and skippers.  The orchard spider was still above the azalea.  We had a flower on the hibiscus.  Thunder began in the late afternoon but the sky was blue to the North.  So I looked out the front windows and that was another story.  But the rain didn't reach us till 6pm.  A wren hurried to get some supper.

Butterflies

There was no hibiscus flower today but there was a bud.  The aster was about finished blooming.  The day was still very hot.  A very large bird with dark wings and yellow feet swooped across the yard so fast that those were the only details that registered on my brain.  My first thought was a heron, but it was too dark and the only wading bird with yellow feet that I know of is a snowy egret.  So now my guess is a young eagle.  

In the water, I rescued a bunch of beetles but was too late for a wheelbug nymph and a robber fly.  A mama spider I fished out of the skimmer jumped back in.  The second time I was not gentle and her babies ran in every direction.  Speaking of spiders, the infant Argiope disappeared.  While swimming I saw a monarch descend upon the butterfly milkweed.  Later a black swallowtail wandered from bush to tree around the yard, perhaps wondering why there was no parsley this year.  A duskywing skipper nectared on the mountain mint.  

A dragonfly watched from the top of the cherry tree.  It was silhouetted so all I can say is that it had unmarked wings.  Wasps and bees worked on the mountain mint.  I was particularly happy to see the first great golden digger wasp of the season.  

 

Hottest 4th

A Carolina wren visited before it got too hot.  It hopped, rather than fly, from the lower dish to the upper.  An venusta orchard orbweaver spider constructed an intricate web over the azalea next to the window.  That should work excellently after dark with a light in the kitchen.  For identification, on the Internet I found lots of pictures of the spider but none of the web.

Because of the predicted heat, I went swimming earlier than on previous days.  I fished out two crane flies but only one recovered.  Also, one of the water-walking spiders, but this one had no babies.  Many more May beetles (southern masked chafer) Cyclocephala lurida plus some black ground beetles, a yellow jacket alive and a honeybee dead.  An interesting moth, possibly a tulip-tree beauty Epimecis hortaria secreted itself just below the coping where it was safe from anything not in the water.  Wasps were active but the only other insect I saw was a tiger swallowtail.  

The outdoor thermometer showed 104 at 4pm.  The sky was hazy with thicker patches so the sun was intermittent.  I had changed the hummer feeder in the morning and I thought I glimpsed a hummer, but I'm not sure.  A mockingbird flew into the cherry tree.  A squirrel found K's peanuts but took the last one into the shade to et.  

 

Hummingbird

The holiday weekend began today.  By 9am, the air was already hot and stuffy with humidity.  A mockingbird landed on the patio and flashed its wings repeatedly.  It was a youngster - freckled breast, no yellow eye - but flashing is not food begging.  I could not see what set it off and it did not seem fearful as it paused to eat something.  Maybe it was just practicing?  Finally it scared a cardinal off the feeder.  

Then a female hummer visited its feeder and actually fed.  That was a relief because I was beginning to think I needed to toss the whole batch of sugar water.  She looked disheveled and tired.  The pool was full of May beetles.  I stopped counting after I rescued a dozen.  I also very carefully rescued some wasps.  The spider was more of an eviction than a rescue but I am twitchy about swimming with them.  I fished a two-lined spittlebug out multiple times.  Sadly, I found the elytra (hard wing covers) from a ladybug floating.  A leafcutter bee fed on the mountain mint.  

K experimented and we learned that the crows like peanuts better than barkbutter balls.  Carolina wrens, however, want there barkbutter, so it all works out, except for the squirrels.   A mockingbird took exception to the crow on the roof and buzzed it repeatedly between visits to the cherry tree.  A squirrel also enjoyed the cherries.  There were fireflies after sunset and the air still felt like an oven.  

Pine warbler

There were two hibiscus blossoms today.  A pine warbler came to breakfast.  Then we had a brief shower.  On my way to swim, I saw a tiny green bee on the mountain mint but, alas, didn't go back for the camera. There were many scarab beetles and a few spiders in the water. Afterward, the bee was gone and I only saw a thread-waisted wasp on the mountain mint.  The Argiope had graduated to a zigzag web.  

At lunch I tried to feed a squirrel peanuts but a crow got there first.  K put more out and the crow brought its offspring!  Seeing a bird that big begging was really funny.  And the fledgling knew how to feed itself, it just wanted mama to do it.  A mockingbird flew up into the wild cherry tree.  

Hot

The air was hot and humid and not very breezy.  The hibiscus was still blooming.  As I stepped outside, a skink scooted off.  Apparently it had been resting in the shade of the house.  There wasn't much in the water - a few beetles, one little mama spider, and a millipede riding a leaf.  I spotted another infant Argiope, this one still making a fingerprint web.  A widow skimmer perched but I didn't see any dragonflies on patrol overhead.  I did glimpse some butterflies.  

A crow and a Carolina wren came to eat, along with the regulars.  Scruffy titmice that I suspect were molting fledglings got into everything.  A mockingbird harvested cherries.  A dark hummingbird visited its feeder but I think I spooked it.  The milkweed was blooming again.  The toadstools in the front yard looked about the same, maybe drier.