Cloudy

I saw lots of butterflies throughout the day: swallowtails, skippers, a red spotted purple, a cloudless sulphur, hairstreaks, and a duskywing.  The only dragonfly was a male widow skimmer.  Wasps fed on the mint and rosemary.  A family of cardinals tried to catch bugs and one, I think cicada, zoomed away buzzing in outrage.  I also saw a cicada killer and more antlion dimples.  In the pool, I rescued a full grown field cricket and a barely visible red leaf-footed bug nymph riding the prow of a leaf like a figurehead.  I saw swimming something I believe was a dragonfly nymph.  It looked an inch long with big eyes and pale legs that ended in black.  Scared me but I wish I could have found it again after I got out to take a photo.  A big spider was all folded up under the coping on the pool. 

A family of red bellied woodpeckers  flew in but didn't stay.  A blue jay poked around under the oak, then perched on the trunk like a nuthatch.  I saw a couple of wrens.  Hummers were pleased to have their feeder refilled.  It had mildew around feeding holes - I hope we got rid of that.  A female goldfinch drank from the hummer feeder moat.  A dove poked around the mulch.

Overcast broke apart and reformed several times.  A couple of skinklets and a larger skink scampered over the concrete.  A hint of purple tinged some of the beauty berries.  Apparently one of the squirrels was in heat because there was a massive chase around the oak.  At least four and maybe six were involved. One squirrel needed refreshment. 

Humid

The windows and the bird feeder were sweating.  K hung the clean hummer feeder and hummers soon arrived, including a male!  The regulars were busy on the seed feeder.  An interesting diagram in Scientific American showed revised bird lineages based on DNA. Hummingbirds are most closely related to swifts. 

As the day warmed up, it dried out.  Lots of butterflies were flying, from a hairstreak to a tiger swallowtail.  A green June beetle buzzed me and I thought at first it was a bumblebee.  It settled on a sunflower stem like the one from yesterday which was still there.  A real bumblebee headed for the sunflowers.  A female common whitetail landed on the patio.  A cicada killer buzzed around bot front and back yard too fast for me to capture.  Skinks ventured out cautiously.

A female pondhawk was hanging around the deep end.  Depressions in the dirt around the maple looked like antlions.  Tiny green geometer caterpillars landed on me.  What I believe was a juvenile eagle swooped overhead then passed upstream behind a screen of trees.

The hummer warz really heated up during supper.  Usually one hummer runs off any others that it sees, but tonight an upstart kept trying to intimidate the dominant bird.  It would fly close to the other hummer who was on the feeder and who refused to give ground.  Oh, the drama!  One of them maintained a watch from the dogwood, but I couldn't tell which.