Morning sun

Finches, cardinals, and chickadees all arrived at once and started to squabble.

I tried to grow sunflowers for the goldfinches but no luck.  Now, too late in the year, four seedlings have popped up under the feeder.  Mimosa and princess sprouts keep coming up all over.  The dawn redwood is starting to get a copper tinge.  The wild blue morning glories are nearing the end of their blooming, I think, but the purple domestic ones are going strong.

The sky is still blue.  A mockingbird posed on the roof corner.  A dove fed a fledgling - it looked like they were killing each other.  Several butterflies, swallowtails, sulphur, monarch, have passed through. A red spotted purple was entranced with a cherry sprout.  A heron flew right over the patio and I heard a kingfisher. 

I startled a brown thrasher that was under the azaleas.  It moved to the wild cherry suckers that are coming up around a stump.  When I followed I found the most amazing fungus growing beside the oak stump that we had cut down last year, before the storm that blew down the bigger tree..  It is called a weeping conk, Inonotus dryadeus.  And that reminds me, yesterday I found a different hard polypore where the pecan used to be.  I believe it is Ganoderma lucidum.

I finally found the yellowjacket nest quite near the same stump.  It's a wonder I didn't step on it.