Donner und Blitzen

A small sunflower bloomed yesterday.  Then it rained substantially overnight.  More was predicted so I swam in the morning.  Beetles, ants, wasps, and roaches were afloat but I only rescued beetles.  Afterward, I glimpsed a dragonfly and a cabbage white.  The New England aster was blooming.  So was the beautyberry.  At lunch, crows and squirrels ate mealworms.  Carolina wrens and bluebirds were unhappy that the dishes were covered against future rain.  A blown leaf fragment fooled me into thinking it was a mantis.  

A thunderstorm arrived around 2:30pm  and rain hammered the pavement.  By 3pm the thunder was loud and the lightning close, while the light was very low.  We lost Internet connectivity for about 22 hours.

Too much running around

Yesterday the money plant pods were fully dried and ready to disperse seeds.  A green pod appeared on the milkweed.  The sky was mostly cloudy.  I saw a young rabbit on my way home. Today, instead, I saw an egret perched on something sticking up out of Pretty Lake.  

At home, a Carolina wren visited the glass dish.  A mockingbird followed but the crow stuck to the easy pickings off the patio.  I rescued many beetles but left alone a yellow fly, a bit bigger than a housefly but the same shape.  The New England aster began to bloom and there were tiny pink buds on the beautyberry and the mountain mint.  I saw a skink but it hid behind foliage.  Wasps were busy.  

Triple digits

Again, I swam before the heat of the day.  More beetles clung to windblown debris in the water.  I also fished out a living queen ant, very carefully.  I'd been seeing drowned queens but this one was still swimming.  All three Argiope spiders were thriving.  The purple asters were gorgeous.  The lichens on the bench enjoyed the rain and sun.  An Asiatic dayflower bloomed.  Coral lilies made red bead-like seeds.  The ruffled daylily continued to bloom.  The sakaki flowers emitted a wonderful fragrance.  

Whatever the National Weather Service recorded, our outdoor thermometer read 100°.  The wind made it bearable, barely.  The butterfly milkweed stopped blooming.  Its foliage looked lush and not chewed by any caterpillars, alas.  The mountain mint attracted wasps but thus far no butterflies.  Money plant pods looked about ready to disperse seeds.  I thought I saw something on a floating leaf and, sure enough, a damselfly perched there.  My best guess was an immature female Eastern forktail Ischnura verticalis. 

Hot

For some reason downy and pileated woodpeckers picked today to visit after weeks of absence.  The brown headed nuthatches stayed busy.  I missed a shot of a blue jay.  The thermometer read 94° in the early afternoon.  Dramatic clouds rolled in from the West.  I came inside when a few raindrops fell and thunder grumbled in the distance.  But no real rain fell and the sky cleared again.  However at dusk it had become overcast.  Fireflies were out. 

There are no photos of the critters I found in the pool because I was wary of the predicted thunderstorm and left the camera inside.  In the water I found one drowned looper caterpillar, too many drowned roaches, ants, two live spiders and more drowned, and one bullfrog.  I rescued a wasp, a wasp, a black ground beetle, an Asian ladybug, and a brown Oriental beetle.  The bullfrog rescued itself.  There were mosquitoes, but they weren't in the water.  The mushroom I saw yesterday was so withered and dried up I almost didn't find it again.  Two variegated fritillary butterflies danced around the milkweed but left before I could get the camera.  Small dark bees also fed on the milkweed.  An Ammophila wasp tried to threaten me away from the milkweed but gave up and flew off. There were buds on the New England aster. 

Skink love

A female bluebird came hunting breakfast.  Everything except the seeds was soggy from the overnight rain.  The bird looked to me like it might have been this year's hatching.  I went outside but the humidity was overpowering so I turned right around.  Later when the temperature had risen it was not so bad.  Clouds flowed from the Southwest.  The New England aster put out a second crop of blooms.  

In the pool, I rescued a couple of winged queen ants and a leaf-footed bug.  A sidewalk tiger beetle watched without getting wet.  Dragonflies hunted the little biters that the humidity encouraged.  The mountain mint was covered by the usual bees and wasps, and a blue mud wasp.  A tiny skink climbed the post which wasn't very smart.  A couple of grown up skinks appeared to be courting.  

The white breasted nuthatch was back and I thought I caught sight of a brown headed nuthatch.  Later, the bluebird argued with a cardinal over access to seeds.  The bigger cardinal won.  Meanwhile, the hummer was sadly disappointed in the diluted sugar water.  Later, a wet Carolina wren wanted a turn at the seeds but the cardinal wasn't having that.  Eventually the goldfinch got an opening. 

The clouds thickened and I headed inside but on the door was a black bug outlined in red.  The closest match seems to be the largus bug, Largus succinctus.  Around 3:45pm the rain finally arrived.  It was quite heavy for about ten minutes and continued off-and-on into the evening.  My mother would have called it "raining stair rods," which is so archaic it might as well be ancient Greek. 

Gloomy day

Today was cooler under an overcast sky.  Red and yellow finches shared the feeder, briefly.  A Carolina wren investigated the seeds and caught a big bug.  Two squirrels chased each other and disturbed birds.  One squirrel actually managed to steal a few seeds from the feeder.  The other had a sweet tooth and tried the hummer feeder.  A pair of brown thrashers hunted in a rosebush. 

The mountain mint was lively with wasps and bees.  I saw a blue mud wasp but it didn't hang around to be photographed.   I did get two different kinds of black bee.  A slaty skimmer used the bamboo perch outside my window.  A hummer visited.  I got my swim time in the morning and we even ate lunch outside.  The aster had buds again.  A great blue heron perched on a dock post.  Not long after that, the rain began.  

Rain lilies

Goldfinches came back.  This year they have been less wary and also more interested in the seeds on offer.  There were birds up in the trees but the only one the camera caught was a chickadee. 

I missed the regular front yard lilies - they must have bloomed very quickly.  I was grateful that three rain lilies popped up where the dry creek bed meets the grass.  The gardenias were still blooming but nearly finished.  The crocosima flowers were well started and mixed with lantana. Two peppers were growing on last year's surviving plant.

And in the back yard, the blue aster had flowers.  An accidental sunflower tracked the sun.  Coral honeysuckle trumpets dangled off the fence, trying to lure hummingbirds.  Wasps and skippers had discovered the mountain mint.  Of course, cabbage whites flitted around.  Dragonflies were more purposeful.  A skimmer used the bamboo perch.  The orchard spider still lurked in the azaleas. 

Home at last

On my way to Northern Virginia last Thursday, I saw a flock of pelicans off Willoughby spit.  A circle of them were bobbing in the waves.  Others flew parallel to the bridge.  After the tunnel, it was nothing but  buzzards all the way.  I passed a road-killed deer.  There was a wildflower garden at the rest stop on 95.  It had beautyberry, black eyed susan, I think mountain mint, a familiar-looking composite gone to seed and other plants I didn't know.  A couple of ladybugs and a bumblebee were attracted to the oasis. I didn't take any photos. 

Trees in Chantilly were turning fall colors and losing leaves.  I saw another dead deer between hotels and yet another this morning.  The garden at today's rest stop was smaller and the only wildlife was a yellow jacket.  A little flock of house sparrows clustered at the base of a light pole.  More buzzards monitored the highways.  

When I got home I sat outside to appreciate the beautiful day.  The trees were mostly still green except for the dogwoods and hickory.  Camellias bloomed but the red asters were fading.  The polypore fungus was still huge and cream-colored.  Chickadees came to the feeder. a yellow rumped warbler wanted food but was wary of me.  Bluebirds flitted among the trees.  The quiet creek reflected sunlit trees.  

 

 

 

 

Two days

Ooops, Sunday slipped away.  It dawned with lovely reflections.  A mockingbird escaped the camera but a Carolina wren posed.  Passing clouds didn't stop the sunshine.  But I didn't take many pictures.  

Monday also began with a placid creek mirroring the far bank.  Blue jays visited early.  I went outside in the late morning but I guess I was too late for the moon.  The giant fungus, as best I could tell is a polypore.  It was still a little soft and bendable but I couldn't see underneath.  I couldn't feel anything like gills or teeth so the most likely spore-producing surface would be pores.  The red aster and the beautyberries were both magenta but the canna was more orange.  Another saltbush toppled over. 

There was a commotion in the grass but I only got a brown blur.  I think two birds were fighting.  One flew into the dogwood and began to sing.  I thought it was some exotic warbler but the photos convinced me it was a Carolina wren.  The tail would have been a giveaway had it not been hidden by a leaf.  

I checked out the venusta orchard spider without a window between us.  It glowed like sun shining through glass.  This time I noticed the small loops of silk in the hub where the spider waits.  

Farewell for blue water

The pool was closed today.  That always is a sad moment, though the mid September weather put an end to swimming and filled it with tree trash.  I got one blurry shot of a sulphur butterfly.  High clouds streamed past on an East wind and in late afternoon, the sky clouded over.  The red asters were the same color as the beautyberries. 

One skink a-swimming

Brown headed nuthatches came for seeds for breakfast.  Little puffs of cumulus didn't last and the sky was a clear blue in the afternoon.  The temperature came up but a breeze kept it from feeling really warm.  Clumps of dogwood leaves turned yellow and red but everything else was still green.  The canna started another flower and the red aster was blooming.  The fungus by the oak got very big.  A couple of butterfly milkweed pods opened but the seed parachutes weren't quite ready to take off.  Between the beautyberry bush and the dogwood trees, migrating birds should think they've arrived at Berryland. 

I saw ripples in the water and discovered a skink had fallen in.  A little wasp tried to hitch a ride on the skink's tail.  I tried to lift the skink out with a brush, but that scared it and I was forced to use a net.  When I set the net down for it to escape, I saw a skink dash into the vegetation.  But that skink lacked a tail, so I was afraid I'd pinched it off.  I put the net back and went back up the steps to let the dog inside.  When I looked back, the skink I'd rescued emerged from the net with all its tail intact.  

A Carolina wren nibbled at the barkbutter balls.  Chickadees and cardinals ate seeds all day.  I heard blue jays but none came to a feeder while I was watching.  But a bluebird landed on the seed feeder, figured out its mistake, and flew to the barkbutter balls.  I thought I'd spotted something exotic in the trees, but it was just another cardinal fledgling.  

The orchard spider's web caught the afternoon sun again.  Backlighting made the Leucauge venusta spider's legs look like green glass attached to a dark gray striped lozenge.  It makes a web that's almost horizontal compared to other orb weavers.  

Hot sun, cool breeze

The sky was intensely blue.  A Carolina wren gleaned crumbs for breakfast, reminding me to refill the hanging dishes.  The male juvie cardinal looked almost adult.  Only his beak gave him away.  Another male fledgling was still doing the feed-me shake.  

The aster put out a late blossom.  Dogwood berries looked ripe.  So dis some of the beautyberry clusters.  A cabbage white seemed interested in morning glory leaves.  Bumblebees joined wasps on the mountain mint.  I found the remains of a black swallowtail in the remains of a web.  Another flitted around the rue.  The monarch caterpillar seemed a little fatter.  I found a drowned cicada but this one was only half the size of the one I found last week.  It was quite green too.  A fuzzy yellow caterpillar climbed the side of the pool and disappeared.  I think it was a yellow woolybear, Spilosoma virginica. 

I saw several blue tailed skinks including one I rescued from the pool.  I thought I saw two frogs in the water but one turned out to be the skink.  The lizard seemed to be following the frog around and even climbed on top once.  After I put the skink out on the nice hot concrete, I evicted the frog as well.  But then it or another appeared back in the water. 

Blue jays feasted on acorns and weren't very interested in the feeders.  Two red bellied woodpeckers landed on the maple trunk but quickly sidled out of sight.  A mockingbird also hid in the leaves.  White breasted nuthatches were brave enough to get seeds while I was outside.  

Two days

I missed the 18th because I was too tired to even look at the pictures I took.  So this is fro both days.  Yesterday, a brown headed nuthatch was the early bird eating suet.  A bluebird was thirsty but the ant moat was down to sludge.  

I found a camouflaged looper, Synchlora aerata, on the mountain mint.  It should grow up to be a wavy-lined emerald moth.  I can only recall seeing the moth once but they must be around.  However, BugNet added, "from Maryland southwards other Synchlora spp. are also present and only raising to adulthood can yield a definite caterpillar ID."  The mountain mint was busy with wasps and bees as well as the mydas fly and a big, green June beetle.  I think one of the bees was a cuckoo bee Epeolus scutellaris.

I rescued a bumblebee from drowning.  In the afternoon, the amberwing again lurked in the mountain mint, obelisking to cool off.  A black swallowtail egged the rue.  The goldfinches worked on their sunflowers.  A mockingbird perched and panted in the heat.  The male hummingbird visited but I didn't see red. 

While swimming today, I found a drowned caterpillar.  It was brown with eye-spots, so probably a tiger swallowtail.  I tried to revive it to no avail.  I also saw a wolf spider on the pool ladder step, and of course beetles.  A beetle wasp, Cerceris spp, joined the mountain mint diners.  Then along came a summer azure.  A skipper also popped up on the mountain mint.  I found three more camouflaged loopers on the aster.  

At lunch, two skinks got into a chase.  The winner basked on the wooden step wall.  The other wandered along the edge of the patio.  I noticed its tail was still blue,. unlike the winner.  In face, the winner had a short, regrown tail unlike the long, slender, twitchy, blue tail. Maybe that made short tail grumpy?  

An odd bird on the fence turned out to be a bald cardinal.  The afternoon got very dark and dropped buckets of rain accompanied by rumbles of thunder.  The storm finished and the sky cleared in time for late afternoon sunshine.  But it was still humid and wet everywhere.  

 

Swallowtail

I was gone all morning.  At lunch, a male hummer checked out the gladiolus flowers, then the feeder. Alas he had his back to the light, so no ruby at the throat.   A Carolina wren hunted suet crumbs, then flew off to one of the dogwoods.  Yellow flowers hung lie bells on a ground cherry. 

After swimming, I picked more blueberries, but they weren't as good.  A tiger swallowtail discovered the aster flowers.  Skippers and snout butterflies preferred the mountain mint.  So did honeybees and other bees.  I glimpsed a dragonfly aloft, earlier.

When I went out to enjoy the twilight, it dripped on me!  It wasn't even a shower, just scattered raindrops, but I had to take my book and camera inside.  So I boiled up the damaged and unripe blueberries.  

Hot and sticky

A male bluebird did not seem pleased with the suet.   A mockingbird ate suet and a blue jay stuffed its beak with barkbutter balls. A goldfinch visited the seed feeder.  A Carolina wren poked into everything.  

I managed to get time for a swim and found a flock of winged ants trapped in the skimmer.  Afterward, I saw the tail of a disappearing skink.  A couple of brown butterflies dueled over the pool.  A somewhat larger brown and orange butter flitted around the patio.  I think it may have been a questionmark.  Wasps enjoyed rue nectar.  Bees were more inclined to the mountain mint.  The blue aster and the sakaki started blooming. 

The heat and humidity weren't so bad at home, but downtown Norfolk was enough to make me worry about heat stroke.  The flood barrier blocked breezes and turned Boush Street into a sauna.  Plus, I lost the parking garage and walked about three extra blocks.  I could see clouds piling up in the East, waiting for sunset's temperature drop to rain.  

Monster bug

For a day that was supposed to be gray and wet, there was a lot of sunshine and warmth.  A breeze felt nice and didn't disturb the reflections on the creek.  The tree colors were visibly further along but there was still plenty of green.  But the hibiscus lost almost all its leaves.  A berry-eating bird mooned me but I can't identify it from that angle.  Finally, a female downy woodpecker discovered the suet.  

I puttered around in the yard planting strawberries and pulling up oak seedlings.  Wasps were still active, especially yellow jackets enjoying the camellias.  I saw spider threads floating on the breeze, but not the spiders.  An egret stood on top of the bulkhead admiring its reflection.  

A bluebird watched from the top of the redwood.  First gulls, then swallows zipped across the sky too fast for my camera.  A mockingbird stayed hidden while eating dogwood berries till finally it forgot to be cautious.  The milkweed seeds stayed in their pods waiting for what to change in the weather?  Blue jays were still hunting acorns.  The red aster appeared to be finished flowering. 

While admiring the beautyberries, I spotted a huge insect that turned out to be a wheelbug.  I didn't recognize it at first because the abdomen was swollen.  Eggs?  The camera ran out of juice but the bug waited patiently till I came back with a fresh battery.  Then it slowly made its way onto a different leaf with twigs in the way.  

Rows of little cotton-fluff cumulus clouds replaced the cirrus wisps and ushered in a wall of solid overcast around 4pm.  After the tricker-treaters had gone home, I tried to take pictures of the first quarter moon through gaps in the overcast.  The photos were so bad I'm tempted to pass them off as Halloween ghosts. 

Gray

A yellow rose bloomed and the red aster put out more flowers.  The maple began to turn reddish orange. One dogwood was ahead of the others in turning fall color but they all were edged with dried out brown..  The fungus looked a bit moldy but maybe it was dispersing spores.  The creek was placid, contradicting the wind prediction.

The titmice were back, along with a nuthatch.  The overcast probably made the air cooler - it barely climbed above 70°.  Rain is supposed to return after dark and last into Wednesday.  A great blue heron used our dock as a fishing stand.  A great egret occupied the next dock downstream.  A buzzard circled low over the creek which disturbed the heron but not the egret. 

Pair of orioles

The temperature barely cleared 70°F despite bright sunshine and a Southwest wind.  That is, the thin clouds were slowly moving Northeast.  I did not try to swim but I did circle the pool to see if anything needed rescue.  Nada.  On my way, I saw a white breasted nuthatch on a tree and heard a woodpecker.  

Blue jays stayed up in the oaks.  The female oriole foraged in the bushes so I only got glimpses.  The male oriole and a mockingbird ate dogwood berries.  The "red" aster was exactly the same magenta as the beautyberries.  Brown headed nuthatches joined titmice and chickadees, and an occasional cardinal, at the seed feeder.  The white breasted nuthatch also made a couple of forays.  A dove wandered around the yard. 

It didn't feel humid and there was a breeze, so why all the mosquitoes?  Big, daytime mosquitoes with white stripes bit me hard when I went over to the fig tree to check on the peppers.  I picked a ripe one and saw three more that were green.  The sunflowers were making seeds. On the way back, I saw a sundog. 

Cold water

An outrageous squirrel sat right outside, on our furniture, eating a pecan off our tree, leaving pieces of hull and shell all over. Shameless!  The camera betrayed me when I tried to get pictures of a brown headed nuthatch.

When I went outside with the dog, I saw a blue dasher perched on a dried gladiolus stalk.  Between the gusty wind and the low humidity, it wasn't very welcoming weather for dragonflies.  A dark butterfly flitted around, probably a black swallowtail. 

I was tired of the mess Fiona left behind and I stayed in the pool till I got all the leaves out.  One leaf was a bullfrog.  Other than that, all I found were a few small wasps.  An egret flew upstream.  I found twigs with hackberries attached amongst the soggy leaves.  The red aster was beginning to get the hang of blooming and the sunflower decided to try again.  

Fireflies!

Hummers were stuffing themselves for the trip.  Someone or something left me a dead skink posed next to the pool as though it were basking in the sunlight.  I found another skink corpse in the skimmer along with many leaves.  Trees have been shedding because it's been so dry, not because summer is almost over. 

The cast exoskeleton of a half-grown praying mantis was lodged in the azalea beside the house.  Under the oak I found two conk fungus fruiting bodies emerging from the mulch.  A yellow rose bloomed.  The red aster had a bud.  The sunflower was a disaster.  Something turned the ripening seeds into sawdust.  I looked for the spiders but their webs were full of debris from the lawnmower so I guess they're gone.  When I looked at the picture of the ground cherries I took, there was a two-lined spittlebug or froghopper, Prosapia bicincta.

After dark, I went outside to photograph the moon and saw several fireflies in both back and front yard. The moon was low to the South and thus behind the pecan. The branches created some weird kind of lens effect.  That's why I switched to the front yard.  But none of those pictures were in focus.  Anyway, I don't recall fireflies this late in the year, before.