Cooler

More running around, but I finally got outside around 3pm.  The day was perfect for being outside but a bit cooler than optimal for swimming.  The Argiope had a fresh web in the same spot.  I startled it and it hid on a spent rose.  The cobweb spider's progeny had little threads over everything.  I found a sizable caterpillar on the rue.  The milkweed bug nymphs were bigger and the adults were flying around.  I saw a couple of very small butterflies, one yellow-brown and the other white or pale blue.  The only dragonfly I saw was in Norfolk.

While in the water I rescued a wasp, a beetle, a very small caterpillar, and then I saw something large swimming.  Moth or horsefly crossed my mind but when I fished it out and it refolded its wings I realized it was a huge leaf footed bug.  I got out to photograph it in case it left as quickly as the wasp.  The breeze felt chilly and I never went back in. 

Home

Afternoon clouds were pretty.  But I got tired of taking their picture while sitting stuck in traffic.  By the time I got in, there was too little light to take anything that wasn't in the sun. I checked on the Argiope and the milkweed bugs and saw an egret at the dam.  

Rain

On my way to the colonial capital, I saw a butterfly.  Blackback gulls hung around the HRBT.  A cell tower near Victory Blvd held an ominous collection of buzzards.  The rain fell most heavily on the road work, sending steam clouds up from the hot asphalt.

Hot sun

The tide was still running high this morning.   The fungus grew quite a bit.  I fished a dead caterpillar, a drowned cicada, and several black ground beetles from the pool. 

A black swallowtail egged the rue.  I saw two dragonflies, one I think was a blue dasher zipped around the hibiscus and the other darted out from the top of the cherry.  All I glimpsed of that one was brown wings.

Goldenrod was blooming.  A skink eluded me.  I wondered if the milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) were taking care of their nymphs, but research said no.  They stayed close and one even covered the nymphs with its body.  The nymphs had molted and left shed exoskeletons littering the pods. Some of the milkweed bugs are quite red while others are a faded orange.  Sex?  Age? 

A jumping spider lurked near the nymphs that were about the same size.  I also saw a brown stink bug on the steps.  The Argiope seemed well. 

Rushing around

I spent much of the day at voter registration drives.  After getting rain soaked and sun broiled, my reward was to see a hawk sail over, lazily pursued by crows.There was a lot of cloud drama.  The moon rose haloed with mist and with Mars as an outrider.

Harvest Moon

Gray skies & spiders and no time for more, alas. I rushed around all day.  The cobweb spider in the window was a mother for the third time.  The Argiope's web looked quite snarled but she had lunch all wrapped up.

A wall of rain seemed to stretch from Town Center to the James River. I went through it headed South to Chesapeake and again as the road curved around to Northern Suffolk where it was absolutely torrential.  But it quit toward evening leaving breaks in the clouds.  On the way home, the full Harvest Moon melted through the broken overcast. 

Rain?

Everything dripped at breakfast and the windows were fogged.  K asserted it was dew but it looked to me like overnight rain followed by high humidity. I checked on the Argiope and thought it looked thinner, but I couldn't see any egg case.  The caterpillars on the rue ignore it. 

After lunch I was determined to swim even though rain was sprinkling.  And I was right because the sprinkles went away almost immediately.  Milkweed bug nymphs had hatched.  Wasps were still at work.  I watched a crow hammer an acorn.  The afternoon was shattered by the noise of the air show miles away until finally four jets buzzed the house.  I saw a lacewing in flight, a magical flutter of green gauze.  Later a grasshopper startled me and got away before I could even be sure what kind it was.

K got potting soil for the hanging plants on the front patio so I thought I'd better make a start.  I worked on the fuschia and discovered it was waterlogged.  I hope I didn't kill it.  At any rate, I finished after 5pm, filthy and sweaty and still in my wet swim suit.  By the time I got that rinsed and me washed, there had been a rain shower.  It could not have been more than 15 minutes.  I was hoping for something that would let me off the hook for watering.

This article was in the newspaper. "The un-scientific experiment is called the windshield test. Wilson recommends everyday people do it themselves to see. Baby Boomers will probably notice the difference, Tallamy said."  I can corroborate that - I was noticing how much less common bug splats were on long drives, despite my Cube's flatter windshield. 

Equinox

I used to expect the equinox would always fall on the 21st, maybe the 22d in a leap year, which this is not.  An explanation says it occurs when the terminator is aligned with the axis of Earth's rotation.  That moment actually occurred after sunset yesterday which put it into today at Greenwich, UK.  And it is almost never on the 21st.  But is is a Pagan holiday. 

A black swallowtail flitted all around the Argiope but didn't get snagged.  I found an amberwing when I looked at my photo of the saltbush.  There was a frog in the skimmer again.  I gave it a stern lecture and let it go but when it didn't hop off, I took some photos. 

K bought a pansy and I dug a hole in the raised mulch bed.  But I encountered a very yucky and puzzling situation.  First, the undersides of the bark pieces were coated with white hyphae in fans of fine threads and thicker areas that looked like foliose lichens. Finding mycelium was no surprise as mulch always seems to come inoculated with some fungus or other.  We've had birds nests and stink horns. A pity it never seems to be morels.  Anyway, under the mulch, the dirt was soft and the trowel plunged right into a cluster of wet white blobs.  They did not seem to have any structure or regular shape.  I don't know if they were mushrooms-in-waiting, grubs, or bulbs.  

Hummers let us know the juice had gone off.  Chickadees bragged about their daring in visiting the feeder while I sat on the patio.  The honeymoon was over for the cardinals - he shoved her off the feeder, twice!  The crows in the oak appear to keep all other birds away from the acorns. When the last crow flew off, blue jays appeared instantly.  But the crows came back.  Something dropped a whole branch into the pool.  Sometimes I think they drop acorns on purpose to watch me swim for them.  In the late afternoon, the hot sun was overtaken bu a blanket of cloud.   It's unlikely that tomorrow's full harvest moon will be visible. 

Clear sky

An orange butterfly  flew up over the house.  My impression was fritillary, not monarch.  I also glimpsed a red spotted purple.  Only one of the big caterpillars was still visible.  But the Argiope caught a milkweed bug.  Curiously, the grown-from-seed tropical milkweed has been bug free thus far.  And the aphids were gone from it as well.  Only crickets and beetles needed rescue from the water, but there was a drowned skink in the skimmer. 

Other skinks were safe on dry land.  A fungus popped up at the base of the oak, same as last year.  The beauty berries looked luscious.  Mallards were bathing on the creek.  Cormorants flew over.  A hummer visited the feeder but did not stay.  Crows were up in the oak and I suspect they were snacking on acorns.  They may have intimidated the blue jays because those were absent.  Two chickadees seemed to have a feud - siblings? 

The moon was stuck in the trees, but Mars, I think, was visible to the South over the house.  I found a really cool website with sliders to show where each planet would be according to the time.  As the centaurs would say, "Mars is bright tonight." 

Cooler

I hit the water early.  The sun's angle was quite different from a month ago and the pattern of shade on the water followed.  A frog awaited me in the skimmer but escaped.  I caught up with it in the deep end.  I also rescued crickets and ground beetles.  A spider danced over the water.   The Argiope had no visible prey.  Three caterpillars on the rue look large enough to pupate.  A swarm of midges swirled in the air.  Skinks prowled the patio.  A brown thrasher hunted under the azalea by the fence.  I could see it but the camera could not.  And again the tide was unusually high. 

Cloudless day

Placid water reflecting warm fall colors at sunrise reminded me that the equinox is close.

A monarch butterfly escaped the camera, but I caught a tattered red spotted purple.  I didn't bother to try for a black swallowtail.  A duskywing skipper fed on the portulaca.  One blue dasher perched in the dogwood.  Skinks soaked up sunshine.

I fished a drowned Argiope out of the water but is wasn't "my" Argiope.  I also rescued two live frogs, a couple of beetles and a lot of crickets.  Three egrets followed each other up and down the creek.  Blue jays made a lot of noise but stayed invisible.

At twilight the tide was up in the grass.  A night heron appeared when it was really too dark for the camera.

Humid

A green damselfly perched on the window frame at breakfast.  The Argiope caught a milkweed bug but cut it loose.  I wonder if it tasted bad like the monarch butterflies?

A monarch did show up at lunch.  A gusty wind buffeted the insects.  Afterward I saw a heron and an egret, one on our dock and the other next door.  The tide was still running high.  After dark, it rained but it was almost finished when I got home. 

Small birds

Another mostly gray day discouraged me from spending time outside.  It was warm and humid.  At lunch time a hummer visited and then took an observation post in the dogwood.  I could not tell if it was one of the summer residents or a migrant.

At suppertime a Carolina wren poked around under the seed feeder.  The light was already going by then.  But there was enough to confirm that the Argiope was fine.  A couple of fireflies flashed.  The clouds thinned enough to let the moon's craters show.

Back to normal

K put the plants and feeders back out and set the outdoor furniture back. Squirrels not only looted the pecans, they carried them right past us. I worked on clearing debris out of the pool and rescued several crickets and one leaf-footed bug.  I also caught two frogs and sent them away.  The Argiope caught another butterfly.  It was still trying to get loose from the web when I first saw it.  I got to see the spider make silk. 

Red spotted purples seemed to be everywhere.  Skinks reappeared.  A silver spotted skipper investigated a rose.  The tide was still very high, especially for the moon's first quarter, and the wind still gusty.  Blue jays made a lot of noise but I only saw one. 

A mockingbird tested the beauty berries.  I sat outside at twilight and saw a firefly.  Something fast but fluttery zigzagged through the air about 20 feet up.  I think and hope it was a bat.  Cicadas and crickets harmonized.  It was too cloudy for moon or stars.

Still gray and gusty

I found a fascinating map of wind flows.  But the day seemed grayer and duller than yesterday despite the lack of rain or storm.  I think it was cooler too.  I didn't get into the water even though I saw the frog swimming around.  The tide was not so high either. 

The Argiope had a huge lunch.  At first I thought it had caught a mouse!  But its prey was very flat and I concluded it was a black swallowtail, perhaps the one that was flitting close to the web yesterday.

Milkweed bugs carried on mating and never seemed to eat.  I may learn otherwise if all the seedpods turn out to be empty.

Gray sky and wind

On the map, Florence stretched from Savannah to Cape May.  But the off-and-on rain was not heavy nor were the winds especially fierce here. A snowy egret watched the water rushing from the lake.  A fiery skipper visited the portulaca. 

Crows flew and blue jays called.  Butterflies came out, first a black swallowtail, then a red spotted purple, then a pair of palamedes swallowtails.  Later I saw something brown, perhaps a painted lady or a buckeye.  One dragonfly again perched atop the cherry.  The Argiope spider relocated again, between the rue and the rose this time, where she made a really big web.  The black swallowtail caterpillars kept munching on the rue and the milkweed bugs kept mating. 

There was no rain after around 11am so after lunch I cleaned the pool.  There were crickets and a few other bugs, shredded leaves, acorns and shards, and huge quantities of pine needles.   The tide came up over the dock again.  Occasionally sunlight got through a thin spot in the overcast.  Up in the redwood, a squirrel dismantled a pine cone, but the inside was so red that at first I was thinking carnivore.

Florence's fringe

Morning was overcast though at times it thinned to let through bleary sunlight.  A snowy egret prowled around the dam outfall.  Then the tide rose and covered the spillway.  It immersed the swamp fleabane next to the dock.  The regular seed feeder visitors were upset that we took everything down. 

The argiope spider was gone from the spot where I originally found it, but after considerable searching, I located it in the middle of the rue.  Young caterpillars were all over the rue.  A silver spotted skipper landed on a morning glory.  The milkweed bugs seem to be growing in numbers.  They have not found the red milkweed that came up from seed, but aphids did.  Wasps were hunting.  A basilica spider worked on her string of eggs.  She was tiny in comparison to the Argiope.  A couple of red spotted purples stayed one flutter ahead of the camera.  A palamedes swallowtail also got away. 


Wind gradually got stronger and louder as the morning went on.  I decided to go for a swim, and a good thing I did as the skimmer was packed solid.  I rescued a mama wolf spider and her kiddies, and innumerable crickets plus a few ground beetles.  A frog got away.


Rain finally started after 3pm. It was not heavy and it only lasted an hour or two.  At sunset colored light leaked through and revealed clouds racing West.  Then the sky went dark and the day ended.

The calm before...

A beautiful day, though very humid.  The sky got hazy in the afternoon and some thunderous-looking clouds piled up, and then disappeared.  Lots of butterflies were flying about, a sulphur, a palamedes, a red spotted purple, and others.  I only saw one dragonfly, at the top of the cherry.  A thread of spiderweb appeared to connect the tops of two trees.

The milkweed bugs were busy mating on the butterfly weed.  Wasps and carpenter bees  went about their business.  One green June bug kept falling into the water until I finally dumped it behind the steps where a raised rim kept it away.  I also rescued several ground beetles and crickets.  I saw some little skinks, including one that drowned.  Leaf hoppers, earwigs, and lacewings drowned too. 

I took down the bird house and we removed all the feeders and brought in plants in preparation for Florence.  Forecasts got progressively less alarmist throughout the day as the hurricane track appeared to settle just North of the border between the Carolinas.

Split screen

Morning was sunny, hot and humid, followed by afternoon rain.  And the sky for the last several days has had a split personality with a sunny blue sky on one side and a brooding, wrathful mass of thunderheads on the opposite side. The change was abrupt from one to the other.

A juvenile night heron crabbed in the high tide that inundated our lawn.  I spotted an orb web in the wooded patch.  Milkweed bugs mated on a seed pod.  A black swallowtail looked for vegetation to egg.  A paper wasp hunted caterpillars.  A blue jay up in the oak ignored me.  An egret and a cormorant rested o the snag in the lake. 

On the way home from an evening meeting, we waited for a small rabbit that was crossing the church driveway.  

High water

Lots of cloud drama did not produce any rain.  But the humidity kept puddles from drying up.  The tide was even higher this morning than yesterday.  General hysteria seems to have kicked in over Hurricane Florence. The Argiope spider caught breakfast. 

A skink flaunted its colors by the birdbath.  Butterflies teased me by staying ahead of the camera.  I noticed that milkweed bugs were the same colors as monarchs. A night heron perched on a dock piling. 

Off and on rain

The pool was full of pine needles after yesterday's storm.  The argiope survived the storm but its web was a mess.  It was the dark of the moon and the tide rose over the dock at 9:30am.  I saw milkweed bugs on the butterfly weed for the first time. 

When we got home for lunch, a wet brown thrasher was sitting on the feeder.  It flew just as it came into focus.  And then the rain returned.  A snowy egret fished at the dam outfall and a great egret stood on the dock.  Camellia buds were getting fat.  During a brief time of sun around 2:30pm, a skink left its blue tail outside the leaves it was hiding under.

Thunderstorm

The day began sunny, hot and humid.  I was up when it was still dark in order to be ready to go to Williamsburg, but it was day when I left the house.  The hotel conference center had a pretty view.

By the time we left, clouds were threatening rain and it arrived soon after.  The sky to the South over the James-Elizabeth estuary was scary.  It looked like rain was so heavy it was solid.  In the East a sharp line marked the front moving up.  It caught up with me before I got home and thoroughly washed the car.  Thunder followed lightning immediately and traffic lights were out  A huge flock of geese fed at the corner of my street.

Still hot

I saw a lot more than the camera did.  A blue jay got bark butter balls for breakfast.  There was a heron on the dock next door but the camera was at the other end of the house.  When I cleaned the skimmer, and anglewing katydid hopped out.  I tried to get it to step onto my finger but instead it flew away.  There was a dead frog in the deep end and the wind brought traces of the previously deceased.  A black and a tiger swallowtail flew by.  A few cicadas were still singing along with blue jays. Crows were everywhere.

A hummer perched overhead in the cherry.  A skink imitated the Loch Ness monster as it humped along the seam in the concrete.  Titmice came for seeds.  I couldn't find the argiope I glimpsed in the spartina but the one guarding the rue was handing quietly behind the zigzag.  Periwinkles were high and dry on the spartina which was in bloom.  A very successful mother cobweb spider in the window frame guarded four egg sacks, one of which was hatching. 

Sunny

Breakfast was rushed and I saw nothing.  At lunch time a blue jay visited and when we got back a hummer was waiting. 

I fished a spider out of the water and disposed of a frog, a skink, a camel cricket, and a sizeable caterpillar.  A kingfisher shot downstream so fast I couldn't tell the sex.  A threatening cloud chased the sun in the West and thunder grumbled, but nothing came of it. 

A photo revealed that a second argiope spun its web in the spartina.  Butterflies flitted one flap ahead of the camera.  An egret joined a turtle on the snags in the lake.  I glimpsed a saddlebags hunting overhead.  The cicada songs came late and few. 

Busy

Condensation fogged the windows again at breakfast.  I did see a titmouse, then I rushed off.  When I got home for lunch I saw lots of skinks.  Midges were dancing together in the air, but where were the dragonflies?  A lovely big sulphur butterfly found the scarlet climber flowers.  Hummers were craving their energy drink. 

Finally I got outside and checked on the Argiope which had switched sides on the web again.  A saddlebags patrolled the air at treetop level.  The pecan was covered with fall webworm nests.  We need a cuckoo to feed on them. The oak was infested with squirrels and blue jays who kept dropping acorns. 

Fair weather

The windows were fogged at breakfast. Blue morning glories were entwined with the scarlet climber.  Fair weather puffs of cumulus cloud floated slowly past. 

By lunch time the butterflies were out.  What appeared from a distance  to be a black swallowtail was fascinated with the violet leaves.  A skink scuttled under the portulaca.  Hummers were busy feeding.  The argiope spider had its underside facing the patio this time.  I've not know one to switch sides of its web before. 

In the pool I rescued skinks and frogs.  I dislike swimming with wasps, even dead, like the floating yellow jacket that seemed to follow me around.   A tiger swallowtail was only a blur on camera.  I found a spot where I could see the lake through a gap in the foliage.  Turtles were out on a log.  The hackberry was loaded with berries. A green pondhawk landed near the steps.  Blue jays enjoyed bark butter balls when they got tired of dropping acorns.

At dusk in Norfolk, I paused to try to photograph the swallows.  I managed to catch several mosquitoes that worried me on the way home.   The sunset was quite colorful. 

Quiet holiday

A monarch came for breakfast.  Later I saw swallowtails edged in yellow, black or palamedes or both.  A butterfly alighted on my chair where I couldn't see most of it but I think it was a painted lady - it had three white spots in the outer corners of the front wings. 

Hummers were around all day, as were blue jays. One blue jay kept dropping acorns in the pool  A blue dasher perched at lunch and a slaty skimmer at supper.  Several skinks prowled the concrete at lunch. 

Two dead skinks and two very dead frogs were in the skimmer.  Nothing required rescuing. I saw several glass snails on the sides of the pool.  I checked on the argiope and found it still in its web in the same spot.

Apparently when I emptied all my seeds around the yard in May, before surgery, one of them was a red milkweed just like those I admired at church.  Beauty berries were beginning to turn purple.  Spartina and saltbush were flowering. In the West haze congealed into clouds that at sunset glowed gold then magenta. 

No rain!

A skink basked by the birdbath.  I spied a very tiny caterpillar on a milkweed pod.  The argiope switched sides on the web. The sky was that intense blue that borders on ultraviolet.  Cumulus popped up in the South but went nowhere. 


I spent a long time in the pool.  There were four live frogs and a very dead one in the skimmer. Also a big green June beetle with its wings out. And I saved two swimming skinks. one of which fell in right in front of me.  But the real treat was a cicada killer that somehow landed on its back in the deep end.  I gave it the far end of a stick to grab and swam for the camera.

I also saw a mockingbird on the ground foraging under the oak.  But I was in the deep end and I figured that if I went for the camera the bird would leave.  After I got out, a hummer perched right overhead.  And that's when the camera battery died.  It was on the same perch that I had photographed and accidentally deleted the other day.  I saw butterflies but hardly any dragonflies.  At least four blue jays sassed me and stole bark butter balls. 

Still summer

Finally, a hummer found the scarlet climber flowers.  A couple of titmice, maybe more, breakfasted on sunflower seeds.  Then a Carolina wren investigated.  A brown thrasher landed on the feeder roof and was gone.  The sky was partly cloudy and the creek quiet.  Two hummers argued over everything including who got to sit in the cherry and keep watch on the feeder.

At lunch, a black swallowtail fed on the milkweed.  Fiery skippers preferred the portulaca.  The camera recovered from whatever I did. I was late getting out to the pool and clouds were already building up.  The rain started before my fingers were even wrinkled.  But I had fished a dead cicada and a dead frog out of the skimmer.  And, I rescued a live skink which foolishly sought to escape me by darting into the skimmer. I let it go and hustled into the house where I'd left the camera, because of the threatening clouds.  Wasps took refuge in the outdoor light fixtures.  Thunder grumbled for an hour as the rain appeared to quit, then started again.