Oriole!

At dawn, the water looked like molten copper.  It was reflecting light that fell on the pine needle carpet on the bank above.  Not too long afterward, a female Baltimore oriole landed on a garden stake.  She looked at the barkbutter dish where other birds were grabbing breakfast but didn't join in.  After she flew away, a hawk swooped down on the feeding birds.  I don't think it caught one, but it certainly scared them.  The tide ran high again. 

Blue jays got over their shock and returned to the barkbutter balls.  Brown headed nuthatches wanted seeds and water.  The rust-colored squirrel was not put off by the hot pepper suet.  A Carolina wren checked out the seed feeder.  White throated sparrows hunted whatever fell to the ground.  A white breasted nuthatch grabbed big peanuts from the seed feeder.  

There were more clouds than the prediction called for, but nothing came of them.  A pine warbler landed on the barkbutter dish.  The male downy tackled the suet.  A junco foraged around the birdbath.  I kept watching for migrating ducks but all I saw was a plastic bottle.  A few cormorants fished off our shoreline.  More flew across the sky.  A bright, fat, just past full moon rose through the trees but I wasn't ambitious enough to go outside for photos. 

I sprayed the crevices of the chair where I thought the thing that bit/stung me so badly was lurking.  Afterward, I teased a dead bug out of a seam and took pictures of it.  Unfortunately, it looks like an earwig, Forficula auricularia, and those are harmless, so I don't know if the chair is safe or not.  What also puzzles me is what the biter/stinger was living on for weeks in the upholstery, besides me.