Dragonflies

Overnight rain dropped the temperature.  A blue jay came for rain-softened barkbutter balls.  I took advantage of the pleasant weather to do some yard puttering.  Tiny, bright orange wolf's milk slime mold Lycogala epidendrum popped out of the end of a landscape timber.  There were eleven flowers on the orange daylily.  A Carolina horse nettle was blooming.  Parsley flower heads looked like fireworks bursting.  The first gladiolus spears appeared.

I spotted a dragonfly on a clump of dead leaves floating in the pool.  It didn't move even when touched so I figured it was dead.  I think it might have had a damaged wing.  In the afternoon, I found it floating on the surface of the water so I hauled it out and discovered it was alive.  My best guess is that it was a harlequin darner Gomphaeschna furcillata.  A female blue dasher kept watch from a dried up daffodil.  Lots of wasps were busy around the yard.  I rescued a bumblebee and a couple of beetles.  The forktail damselfly was again perched on the pool coping in the late afternoon. 

A soaring bird might have been a Mississippi kite.  An egret flew downstream.  The male pileated woodpecker came by to see if there was suet.  But even though I put out fresh sugar water, I didn't see a hummer.  

Hot

The female pileated woodpecker was back for breakfast. A bluebird waited for me to refill the mealworm dish.  A mockingbird came for brunch and a long drink from the birdbath. 

I saw 88° on the outdoor thermometer.  A black swallowtail found the bolting parsley.  A few turtles sunned on the logs but maybe it was too hot.

Certainly a great blue heron thought so.  It perched on a dock piling and let its wings drop so the late afternoon sun and breezes could reach areas normally covered.  This can be a threat pose but I saw no other bird.  

Still hot

While last night was cooler, the temperature went right back up to 90° and it was humid under a mostly overcast sky.  The male hummingbird finally posed, but where was the sunlight that would have shown his ruby throat?

I evicted two frogs and a lot of tree litter from the pool.  When I got out, I watched a little skink that had already lost a tail bask in a moment of sunlight.  Bees checked out the sunflower.  A dragonfly watched from the perch outside my window.  But when I got the camera they all vanished.  Volunteer portulaca began blooming and the two asters put out a flower each.  The hibiscus had another blossom.  The parsley seeds were almost ready. 

At lunch, a female bluebird landed on the barkbutter feeder but a female red bellied woodpecker took over.  The bluebird watched indignantly from atop the post.  But when the woodpecker took off, a male pine warbler slipped in.  The male bluebird joined the female and everyone got fed.  But they all looked the worse for wear as they molted their Spring feathers.

Mysterious bubbles at the water's edge caught my eye.  A couple of small turtles rested on the log at the lake's edge.  I spotted a brown thrasher foraging in the saltbush.  A splash alerted me and I saw a kingfisher land on a piling, but without a fish.  I thought it was a male but some brown on the chest made me think it might be a young female.  Rain started around 3:30pm.  It lasted less than an hour, I think

Windy

Bluebirds and blue jays ate up all the barkbutter balls.  Many crows gathered to harass something I couldn't see, but I assume it was a hawk.  Two curious osprey circled higher over the commotion.  

A couple of blowflies rested on mountain mint leaves, for what?  A leatherwing beetle roamed a parsley umbel. I glimpsed a tiger swallowtail and tossed a couple of beetles and spiders out of the water.  

Two brown headed nuthatches came for seeds and squeaked at me because I was sitting too close.  Under a cloudy sky, the temperature was seasonable, except for wind gusts which felt very chilly in a wet swimsuit.  

Windy

The remnants of Hurricane Ida brought more wind than rain, though there was a brief shower in the early afternoon. The palamedes swallowtail frustrated me again.  I caught a couple of small bees pollinating the purslane.  And I found one of the caterpillars I moved to the butterfly milkweed.  It had grown and was apparently feeding on the milkweed pods.  An amberwing flitted off from a perch in the mountain mint.  Some sort of skipper, or other small butterfl7ylooked for flowers around the birdbath, then flew off unsatisfied. 

The green bee also refused to pose.  A very tattered female great blue skimmer used the perch outside my window, and next to the new Argiope web.  A bad neighborhood for insect prey.  And speaking of predators, the mantis was still hiding in the lavender.  A black swallowtail egged the rue where I could see a half dozen caterpillars at various stages of development.  I saw a hummer feed so the rain must not have gotten into the sugar water.  The bracket fungus was round and glossy.  Unfortunately, the yard workers cut off all my parsley before I finished harvesting seeds.  Rain did come well after sunset.  

Rain

Judging by the ant moat, we got about half an inch.  In the morning I heard the bullfrog again even though the windows were closed.  Wrens and titmice joined the feeder regulars.  A blue jay took a look but I'd let the bark butter go empty on account of the rain.  Parsley collected the raindrops till it looked like the model for a chandelier.