Buggy

The heat returned, this time with humid, sticky air.  We picked blueberries and it was not pleasant.  I was very glad to get into the water and cool off.  The little Argiope seemed settled in among the mountain mint stalks.  The orchard spider also seemed quite settled.  I rescued a small spider that looked like it might grow up to be a marbled orbweaver, or something in the Araneus genus.  Also, I fished out a planthopper, Acanalonia conica, and the usual batch of May beetles.  I tried to get the planthopper to come up to the house for a photo shoot but instead I got to see it fly away.  

The same insects were back on the mountain mint: leafcutter bees, carpenter bees, the hairstreak and the duskywing, and thread-waisted wasps.  A blue dasher obelisked on a twig.   A woodpecker went after cherries.  All I got was blurs, but it might have been a flicker.  Birds were not plentiful.  

Widow skimmer

I first saw the dragonfly in the front yard yesterday as I drove in.  But when I took the camera to look for it, I couldn't find it.  This morning as I dripped after swimming, it was in the back yard fighting a strong, gusty wind.  I picked the first blueberries, only a small handful. A brightly colored stinkbug flew off of the bush.  A largus bordered plant bug was drowned.  Lots of scarab beetles and one black ground beetle survived dunking.  I had hoped the wind would keep biting bugs away but one got in my face and I may have drowned it.  Birds were scarce.  

End of the hear wave

A myrtle warbler breakfasted on barkbutter balls.  Then three starlings argued about who would eat first.  A white throat headed for the mulch to look for seeds.  A blue jay followed the starlings.  A different myrtle warbler tried the jelly.  One white throat appeared to be molting and looked a mess.  I saw an orange butterfly about the size of a cabbage white.

The sun was still bright at lunch.  Afterward I took the camera to the front yard.  Pollinators were busy around the jessamine but too fast for me to photograph.   The bumblebees buzz-pollinating the blueberries were a little slower.  Clouds rolled through and the wind made 70° feel a little chilly.  

I spotted some money plant flowers.   The birds stayed away while I was outside but showed up as soon as I came in.  Bluebirds and the red bellied woodpecker scarcely waited for the door to close.  A mockingbird came but by then the barkbutter dish was empty so it headed for the jelly.  I hadn't refilled the barkbutter balls because rain was predicted.  Around 4pm the sky darkened and the wind picked up and the temperature started dropping.  A rain shower passed through around 5:30pm but hardly wetted the birdbath.  A very red sunset glowed through the trees.  

HOT!

The song sparrow was up early to hunt elusive seeds in the mulch.   A white throat ate breakfast out of the glass dish.  K moved the peppers outside and already a couple started to ripen.  I tried to get a picture of the insects pollinating the jessamine, but they had too much solar energy.  Buds were opening on the blueberries.  

Bluebirds came for lunch.  A myrtle warbler snacked on suet then found a barkbutter ball.  A Carolina wren also dined on barkbutter balls.  The warbler moved over to the jelly dish.  I brewed tea in the sun.  The temperature rose over 80°!  I saw a cabbage white and a small orange butterfly, many bees, and a wasp flying.  NWS Wakefield said it was 83 and broke the record for March 10°.

Oh, the noise!

The Argiope's web was twisted by the rain overnight.  A bluebird came early for the party mix in the dish feeders and a brown headed nuthatch came for seeds.  The nuthatch ran into a territorial finch but it persisted and eventually got breakfast.  Later a Carolina wren wanted suet.  Titmice also got seeds.  A goldfinch just wanted a drink. 

A monarch butterfly found the butterfly milkweed.  I got just a glimpse of a tiger swallowtail and maybe another butterfly, and of course duskywing skippers.  Dragonflies were plentiful.  A female great blue skimmer, a blue dasher, and a widow skimmer used perches.  Cruising overhead were a prince baskettail and a saddlebags.  Honeybees, bumblebees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees and those megachili bees with the furry pantaloons converged on the mountain mint along with wasps. 

I fished a centipede out of the water but ants decided it was a corpse.  A horntail was luckier and revived.  It stuck its horn up in the air like a dragonfly obelisking but it certainly wasn't too warm, so maybe that was a way to get rid of water.  iNaturalist said it's an Asian horntail Eriotremex formosanus.  Several brown scarab beetles and a bumblebee also got a reprieve from a watery grave.  After swimming with the bugs, I picked blueberries.  A couple of small organisms flew across the yard too fast for identification.  My first guess was hummers, but they could have been large insects.  A bluebird hid in the dogwood.  

A little before 9pm, I went outside to see if there were any visible sparkles from all the booming and banging.  Only a flicker showed through the trees occasionally.  So I watched the fireflies and pretended they were the sparks.  The moon was past first quarter and overhead, but blurred by haze.  When I came inside, I noticed a longhorn beetle (I think) on the window by the camellia.  

Still hot

I didn't notice much in the morning.  The sky was hazy.  Wasps fed on the mountain mint.  A small black bee stung me but it raised no welt.  I picked more blueberries.  A blue jay was almost too wary to get the barkbutter it wanted.  A nuthatch ignored me and got seeds. 

Afternoon heat sent a couple of prince baskettails soaring.  A bluebird pair wanted to visit the feeder but I was too close for comfort.  The great crested flycatcher popped up on an oak limb.  I think it was panting in the heat.  A skink appeared and disappeared before I could react. 

Blueberries

The day was sunny but, thankfully, the temperature moderated and stopped at a normal summer mid-80s.  I had back-to-back meetings and didn't get outdoors till 6pm.  A skink scampered across the step.  I went for a swim  and rescued a spider, a snail, and a couple of beetles.  There was a lot of tree detritus in the water but the wind wasn't noticeable.  After I got out, I picked a pint of blueberries.  Some were as big as cherries from all the rain.  A couple of nuthatches and some cardinals came for seeds while I ate supper.   The solstice moment happened at 10:42pm when there was no Sol in the sky.  

Humid

I sat outside after lunch.  The sky was hazy blue and the air humid.  I saw the same butterflies and big dragonflies.  The brown headed nuthatch scoured the seed feeder.  The Carolina wren was back at the suet.  The cardinals were still making kissy-beak.  In the front yard there were buds on the lilies.  The false indigo was lovely.    Lots of blueberries were ripening.  Mosquitoes were biting.  There was a very small, ripe pepper.  

Bright light

White throats were up early.  I was rushed and didn't have time to really observe till lunch.  Also, my eyes were dilated and the sunlight was really bright.  Bluebirds arrived and split up among the feeders and the birdbath.  A pine warbler scarfed up barkbutter crumbs.  The white throats were still around.  A female oriole appeared.  K said the bird found the jelly.  

Finally my eyes returned to normal so I went outside.  The sky again had that dilute blue skim milk look in the afternoon.  A handful of small birds flew over so very fast that they seemed like gray phantoms.  I wasn't fast enough to capture them.  I did capture a female kingfisher on the dock post because I heard the bird cackle.  An egret flew downstream.  The blueberry bushes had turned red.  I smacked a late mosquito. 

Scorching

In the front yard peppers were turning red.  A rain lily popped up at the end of the dry creek bed.  I picked blueberries before swimming.  Between the monsoon rains and the heat, many berries had popped and were fermenting.  It smelled like a brewery and buzzed with wasps.  I saw an interesting orange long-legged critter that might have been a cranefly.  Also, I just glimpsed an orange and brown butterfly.  What popped into my head was a diana fritillary, Speyeria diana, though that seems unlikely - I only know it from field guide illustrations.  And I didn't have the camera.  

As I dried out, I watched the mountain mint.  It's like a desert waterhole, only for insects.  A fiery skipper joined the bees and wasps.  The goldfinches were back.  A blue dasher obelisked.  A larger skimmer perched normally.  I could not find the last Argiope spider. 

Very hot

Morning brought goldfinches and hummers.   The one Argiope made it through the rain.  I caught a blur of the coy tiger swallowtail.  A gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus, enjoyed the mountain mint.  And a monarch visited the butterfly milkweed. 

The sun was fierce so I swam in the morning while there was still shade.  Among my rescues were two small brown click beetles.  I also fished out a mama spider covered with spiderlings.  An anglewing katydid was too far gone. 

A skink climbed the wall.  A widow skimmer used a bamboo stake as a perch.  A different species perched atop a twig on the wild cherry.  Another, maybe a blue dasher, landed on the metal cap on the post which must have been hot.  And a slaty skimmer clung to another stake.  I got some pictures of the small gray leafcutter bee and took too many of the great golden digger wasp.  An odd orange fly turned up. 

The brown thrashers put in an appearance mid day but kept screened by vegetation.  The rain turned the blueberries to mush.  I've never seen that happen before.

H O T

The sun was intense despite shreds of cumulus blowing out of the Southwest.  A fierce wind whipped the trees and cast debris into the water.  The Carolina wren  was up early, looking for that good barkbutter.  There were only a few crumbs left.  I took more out later and blue jays were not far behind.  The wren returned as well.  Then a crow wanted a big beak full. 

The orchard spider moved near the front of the azalea which put the web at a difficult angle for the camera.  The little Argiope was refreshing the opaque part of its web.  A frayed silk thread dangled stretched between bare twigs at the top of the wild cherry.  The cherries were ripening but if we don't get rain they will be nothing but skin and pit.  I found another Argiope web, but it seemed to be uninhabited even though it was in good shape. 

I picked some blueberries in the morning while it was only in the 80s.  By lunch, the thermometer flickered between 101 and 102°.  A yellow crowned night heron flew over the house.  One blue jay chose seeds even though the perch slowly dropped from the bird's weight.  A dropped seed that germinated looked ready to harvest.  After leafing out and blooming, most of the rue shriveled and died from some unknown cause, maybe old age.  A Japanese beetle tasted a rose leaf.  The roses were chewed to pieces. 

Blue water!

Another day in the upper 80s with a pleasant breeze, and now the pool is open.  It was slim pickin's for birds in the morning because I hadn't put anything out and the suet was almost gone.  The mockingbirds and bluebirds were not pleased.  The female pileated was determined to get the last morsel of suet.  It was a stretch because the nubbin was lodged on the far side of the suet cage.  

The coral honeysuckle was ready and waiting for a hummingbird.  It looked to me like this year we will get a good crop of blueberries - if the rain gods are well disposed.  I found a black swallowtail caterpillar on the rue.  Tiger swallowtails eluded the camera.  Later I saw a female cardinal in the rue, possibly hunting caterpillars.  

A blue jay and a bluebird finally got some barkbutter balls.  But the female pileated discovered that there was no suet left.  (Tomorrow I will hang the last block.)  She gleaned some fallen crumbs.  And she raised her crest to express her feelings.  Or maybe because a crow showed up?  

We're hungry!

The creek and the azaleas were both so lovely, I didn't know where to focus.  But the birds were sulking because there were no seeds in the seed feeder, no suet in the suet cage, no barkbutter, no mealworms, no jelly!  The blueberries bloomed.  The buds on the sweet gum were swelling.  The wind stretched out the flag across the creek and quickly drove me indoors.  The moon was bright but the camera refused to see anything but a white blob with a halo.  

Summer-like

The creek was exquisite at low tide in the early morning light.  The yellow long-haired cat tried to hunt birds under the feeders.  I need a Rube Goldberg device that would dump water on birdwatching cats.  A couple of brown headed nuthatches ignored the cat.  A white  throated sparrow perched in one of the dogwoods out of reach.  A pine warble landed on the feeder roof, then on the suet remnant. 

The temperature rose to 73°.  I emptied the bluebird house and, thankfully, found no eggs.  Carolina jessamine, daffodils, dandelions, and buttercups gilded the greenery. Hyacinths and a few azalea blossoms added other primary colors.  I don't know why people think Spring is pastel.  

An oriole perched in the maple, then visited the jelly.  A bluebird found the barkbutter balls.  So did a starling.  A white breasted nuthatch made it to the feeder.  A pileated woodpecker was disappointed because the suet cage was empty. 

Some buds burst on the oak and dogwood.  Buds on the blueberry bushes were close to opening and bees hovered around like it might happen any minute. I saw a cabbage white flitting around and after dark a tiny silver moth shaped like an isosceles triangle on the window.  Spider threads lurked on the jessamine. 

Hot and stormy

The goldfinches came early, and two pairs showed up.  They had to settle who got first access to the sunflower.  I think it was the newcomers, but couldn't be sure.  Eventually all four settled on the plant.  A Carolina wren fussed at me for being too close.  A mockingbird chased off some crows. 

Fortunately, I swam in the morning and rescued a bumblebee, a honeybee, and more beetles.  Drowned bees were plentiful.  I picked some more blueberries but they weren't as fat as those right after a rain.  As I dried out, a skink ambled across the patio.  In the afternoon, the thermometer read 100° and then after a thunderstorm it dropped to 79°.  A second thunderstorm blew through in the evening. 

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.  

New beetle

I was afraid it was an emerald ash borer but it matched the red-legged metallic wood boring beetle, Buprestis rufipes.  Wood boring beetles are often beautiful and destructive but this one apparently prefers dead wood.  I suspect it might have come from the oak limb that fell in the storm.  Several blue mud daubers,Chalybion californicum, fed on the rue.  They seemed smaller than usual.  Paper wasps bustled all around the flowers and plants.  I saw honeybees on the mountain mint, and leather wing soldier beetles, of course. 

Blueberries began to ripen and the recent rain made them big and fat.  I picked quite a few of only the largest.  On my way, I found raised ridges in the grass and especially in mossy areas. One of them moved as I watched, which was kind of creepy.  I suppose they were dug by moles. 

At lunch, a mockingbird attacked a crow.  The mockingbird kept up its harassment until the dog noticed the crow and scared off both birds.  I suppose the crow got too close to the mockingbird nest.  A brown headed nuthatch slipped in among the chickadees to get a sunflower seed.  A hummingbird decided to risk my presence. 

I need to report that the goose excluders failed.  I had to chase four geese out of the spartina planting.  A yellow crowned night heron preened on a dock post.  Vegetation hid the bird's head.  

Green head fly!

The hummers were hungry and there were several disputes over the feeder.  Despite the heat, the dog insisted on several trips outside,Menacing clouds blew through and there were a couple of showers.  (The prediction was way off the mark!)   I missed getting a picture of the brown headed nuthatch. 

Skippers returned to the mountain mint and a black swallowtail flitted around the rue.  Mockingbirds were hungry enough to consider feeder food.  Bluebirds looked disheveled from molting.  I only glimpsed a goldfinch but a pine warbler.was willing to be photographed.  Other birds wanted cherries.  I suspected the blue jays of going after the blueberries.  A whole family of titmice were at the sunflower seeds whenever cardinals let them. 

Speaking of sunflowers, one had the beginnings of a bud.  A skink ran across the steps.  Brown May beetles and green Junebug beetles went for a swim.  Two little frogs were in the skimmer.Despite their escape into the pool, they weren't hard to catch.  I wish I could convince them to stay out because the pol chemicals kill them. 

The evil fly tried to bite me as soon as I was out of the water.  I had to go dripping into the house to get away.  Bluebirds and pine warblers continued their feeder visits.  A male towhee foraged under the feeder.  A white breasted nuthatch preferred to stay up on the feeder. 

Camera trouble

I couldn't get the camera to turn on.  So from memory, there were lots of dragonflies.  I rescued a threadwaisted wasp, a horntail, and a green metallic tiger beetle that was rafting on a leaf.  The last I saw, the beetle was still clinging to the leaf.  There were still blueberries to pick but the heat and humidity were awful.  A mating pair of robber flies landed on my berry bucket.