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.

Sunshine

Another summer day came loose and fell into October.  At breakfast, the sky was still overcast.  Titmice came to the feeder and a blue jay to the meal worms but it saw me and flew away.  A grasshopper landed on a window.  The squirrel with the pale tail and long ears lost her warble and the hair was beginning to grow back where she'd scratched all around the swelling.

The sun returned just before noon but I had an afternoon commitment and thus missed a love afternoon.  It was above 80 when I returned a little before sunset.  I saw a kingfisher zoom past, headed upstream, and heard it cackle.  But when I walked out onto the dock there was no sign of it.  Four geese paddled downstream but the light was too low in that direction.  The saltmarsh fleabane was going to seed and the sassafras was turning orange. 

Wet

A stinkbug was on the inside of the patio door glass when I got up.  I put it outside.There was more mist when I went back to the conference, but I arrived reasonably dry.  When I left, mid afternoon, puddles indicated that there had been real rain.  I saw a great blue heron in a trashy swale and a minute later a monarch butterfly through the Tide window.  The mist was moving toward rain as I exited and drove home.  By 5pm it was definitely rain.  And a strong wind was driving the tide up into the grass.  The saltmarsh fleabane didn't mind. 

Balmy

In the morning, a wet mist clung to everything, but it was warm enough that the wetness could be ignored.  A mockingbird played with one of the red dogwood berries I had fished out of the water and left on the patio.  An egret waited for breakfast by the dam outfall. 

At lunch time I glimpsed what looked like a zebra swallowtail on a camellia blossom.  It was gone before I could do more than say, "Look!"  Then a cloudless sulphur flitted past.  A big bird grasshopper clung to the window screen long enough for the camera. 

There was only a light breeze on the ground, but clouds streamed out of the Southwest while higher clouds seemed to move more slowly and closer to due East.  I again saw a leaf that appeared to be floating in mid air and discovered a huge web stretching from the creek edge to the trees along the pool and a dozen feet high. There was no sign of the spinner.  A periwinkle clung to a spartina stalk.  I relocated the Argiope egg sack.  The saltbush was decked out in white but the saltmarsh fleabane's pink flowers had wilted to brown.  Sassafras leaves had turned a caramel brown.  The goldenrod did not seem to have attracted insects. 

The water was warmer and actually pleasant.  A drowned camel cricket floated among the leaves.  Innumerable ground beetles waited for rescue.  Three spiders preferred to climb the walls. There were also a couple of the tiny velvet-black caterpillars floating.  A jumping spider sat on the slick chrome railing.  The sun got through the clouds frequently as the afternoon went on.

A Carolina wren investigated the hose bib, the mealworms, and under the rosemary.  A song sparrow perched and a cardinal preened in the camellia. There was another spectacular evening sky on my way to Norfolk, though I was inside before the sun set.  And a lot of rain fell before I came back. 

Windy

Morning was sunny with a cool wind.  Several birds looked disheveled from molting.  I got a glimpse of a ragged wren.  Hummers kept up their battles. 


The afternoon got very windy and grounded many insects but some butterflies held their own.  The black swallowtail was still busy passing on her genes.  A red-spotted purple soon disappeared, but a painted lady made forays off the oak leaves.

From one spot I could see the lake and snowy egrets perched on a fallen tree.  I was on my way to a closer look at the argiope spiders in the marsh.  They were getting blown around. The one in the middle already had an egg sack hanging on a groundsel bush. 

Several saltmarsh fleabane plants were in bloom.  I was worried when they didn't come back last year.  The wind had pushed the water up around them. Virginia buttonweed's little four-petaled star flowers dotted the grass near the water.

Around 4pm a dark bar of cloud began coming at us from the Northeast.  It brought rain about a half hour later.  I tried to stick it out and keep on cleaning the pool but the rain seemed to be getting harder and the wind was like a gale.  But by the time I got my suit off, it had stopped.  Oh well. Large clouds continued to flow overhead on that cold wind until it was too dark to see. 

Clouds and wind

There were white wisps when I got up and half an hour later the sky was overcast, then that too swept off to the West.  A male goldfinch got a drink from the hummer feeder moat.  Hummers sucked up juice every couple of minutes.  I had glimpses of egrets on the creek. 

A rap on the window alerted me in time to see (but not photograph) a cicada killer in hot pursuit of a cicada.  Wow!  The wind discouraged birds and bugs for the most part.  However, an aerial battle between hummers passed right over my head.  A titmouse was unwilling to land on the feeder with me near.

The black swallowtail caterpillars are just as voracious, but they have more rue than the monarchs have milkweed.  The swallowtail is on the left and the monarch on the right.


Altogether it was not much of a photography day - just flowers and caterpillars.  There were flowers on the trumpet vine and the chaste tree.  The fern fronds were dark with spores.  The saltmarsh fleabane had buds, though there was only one plant this year.