Storm

Just down the street on the way to church we saw a rabbit.  Blue jays and white throats visited the glass dish while cardinals and house finches ate seeds.  A squirrel foraged underneath.   By 3pm a storm was blowing our way from the West.   It got dark and windy before the short deluge.  

Rabbit

A pair of goldfinches came for breakfast but didn't find anything to their taste.  Bluebirds were easier to please.  The juvenile cardinal discovered barkbutter balls.  It also ate seeds.  A couple of Carolina wrens ate suet.  Curiously, low clouds flowed quickly out of the Northeast while higher cumulus slowly drifted East.  I wonder if that indicated vertical wind shear?

Both spiders seemed fine and I discovered another web over by the rose, though it appeared deserted.  The young one still had black-and-white striped legs while the adult had all black except the section closest to her body which was orange.  Unexpectedly, rain fell just before lunch and the moisture outlined the orb webs.  Afterward, a prince baskettail dragonfly hunted at treetop height

During lunch, the brown thrasher was back, still a raggedy mess.  A white breasted nuthatch developed an attitude and bullied the house finches instead or the other way around.  A wet crow prowled around.  A brown headed nuthatch was able to get past the house finches to the seeds.  Another was frustrated and ate a bit of suet instead.    A couple of downy woodpeckers came for suet but I didn't get a good look at either one.  Blue jays argued over the barkbutter balls.  Titmice managed to get some.  

A skink paused in front of the violets.  In the mid afternoon, a cottontail grazed on the slope above the shoreline.  That made me notice that the spartina had filled in thickly this summer.  A green heron perched on the back of the dock bench.  The only wildlife I found while swimming was a mosquito but when I put my hand down on a chair arm something stung me.  

A change of nuthatches

A white breasted nuthatch came for breakfast but I didn't see a brown headed nuthatch all day.  Titmice, however, did want seeds.  A Carolina wren cared more about suet than the heat.  A house finch sat beside the ripe wild cherries pretending he had no interest in them.  A hummer showed up but I was sitting to close to the feeder.  The day was oppressively hot, but afternoon clouds prevented the thermometer from reaching triple digits.  

I glimpsed a rabbit hop past the deep end of the pool.  Squirrels were leaping from tree to tree playing "chase me," I think.  A fiery skipper blended in with the milkweed.  Dragonflies perched and hunted, in front and in back.  There were, indeed, two Argiope  spiders in the front yard, one guarding the peppers and the other watching over the lantana.  The pepper minder had caught a cicada and dropped the carcass into the flowerpot.  It had a stinkbug as well, still in the web.  The one in back seemed satisfied with its current location.   

Rabbit

At lunch a hummingbird visited the feeder but I couldn't tell whether it found the sugar water palatable.  A tiger swallowtail crossed the yard.  The first daylilies bloomed.  A blue jay gave me a stern look.  A dove tried to reach the seeds but it was too heavy. 

While watering plants, K saw the rabbit on the front walk  

Dragonflies

The sky dripped a little at breakfast and that was all there rain there was.  A white breasted nuthatch joined the chickadees and titmice, cardinals and house finches at the seed feeder.  A mockingbird and later a blue jay, bluebirds, and a pine warbler visited the dish of barkbutter balls.  Goldfinches couldn't leave the sunflower alone.  The mockingbird harassed a couple of crows on the roof. 

The pool was full of beetles - a few black ground beetles, lots of brown May beetles, and of course Japanese beetles.  And the mountain mint was full of bees and wasps.  The hibiscus attracted a grasshopper nymph, a tiger swallowtail, and of course Japanese beetles.  A duskywing skipper visited the mountain mint.  The canna bloomed.  One lone turtle occupied the log on the lake. 

The humidity was higher which brought out the little biting bugs and that brought dragonflies.  I saw one outside the library i think was a wandering glider, Pantala flavescens.  A four spotted pennant, Brachymesia gravida, perched at the top of the cherry tree on a twig that something had stripped of leaves.  Something else zipped back and forth too fast for identification.  An amberwing, Perithemis tenera, lurked in the mountain mint. 

On the way home I spotted a rabbit.  As I sat outside around 5pm, the goldfinches, a mockingbird, a pine warbler, the female pileated woodpecker, and the male hummingbird fed cautiously.  They didn't like it if I moved to aim the camera.  

One swallow

A Carolina wren greeted the sun with a beak full of suet.  Then a male pine warbler showed up wanting suet. 

The mountain mint was throbbing with bees and wasps.  I rescued a metallic green six-spotted tiger beetle.   A large blue tailed skink paused for a photo op.  The blue was nearly gone from its tail so I guess it was close to adulthood. 

I had noticed a complete absence of swallows this summer until I saw one today over the playground at the elementary school.  The proverb, “one swallow does not a summer make" dates back to Aristotle, I discovered.  I also saw a rabbit at the library, but it saw me too.  

The reason I had the pocket camera out was the dramatic clouds closing in from the South.  But I missed quite an impressive lightening strike. And not too much later, all that drama came raining down. 

Picnic in the park

The weather for the picnic was lovely, though there were lots of puddles and muddy spots and eventually the little biters hatched out.  I saw a bird swooping back and forth over the grass on the hill.  I'm guessing it was a swallow feasting on bugs.  I did not see any dragonflies however.  And I didn't get any wildlife pictures except a couple of unicorns.  

When I finally had time to look out at our yard, mallards dabbled in the creek.  Cormorants dried out on logs on the lake.   A rabbit dashed across the back yard while I was wasting pixels on mallards.    

Moist

The rain stopped mid day but the humidity was miserable.  And the temperature never quite made it to 73° so I was not tempted by the pool.  A fiery skipper landed on the glass, but I thought is was a moth till I opened the door. 

Birds came for suet but they didn't seem very enthusiastic.  Maybe the humidity bothered them too?  A blue jay twisted around to get a bite.  Then a male bluebird took a turn.  Titmice, chickadees and downy woodpeckers attempted to share. 

The rain dissolved yesterday's fancy daylily.   It didn't seem to bother the true lilies in the front yard.  The slime mold also seemed undisturbed.  I saw a couple of gray russulas but no other mushrooms yet.  The rabbit was back, nonchalantly munching the front yard grass.  

 

Not in the prediction!

The sun at breakfast spotlighted half open daylily flowers.   There was supposed to be no chance of precipitation today so I didn't rush to get outdoors.  But a storm popped up after lunch and didn't clear off till after 4pm.  While the rain fell in bursts and there was a little thunder there wasn't very much more water in the ant moat.  Even so, rainfall for the year again edged ahead of the average with more expected all week. 

I managed some pool time after the rain, but not much was going on.  A few more black beetles needed rescue.  The spider I'm still trying to identify must have identified me because it hustled away into the vegetation. So far the closest thing seems to be the genus Schizocosa.  I rescued a glass snail twice then gave up on it.  After supper I noticed the rabbit in a neighbor's yard.  The fireflies were back as soon as the sun set. 

Chilly water

Bluebirds, the brown thrasher pair, a Carolina wren, a starling, and of course downy woodpeckers visited the suet.  Cardinals and chickadees preferred sunflower seeds.  A female hummer made a short stop at her feeder.  The mockingbird ran through its repertoire while hidden in the pecan tree. 

The thermometer said the water was 74°.  I rescued a spider and a tan weevil.  An osprey flew over.  A small, pale butterfly flitted among the trees about twenty feet up.  I'm guessing it was some kind of azure or hairstreak.  Wasps bustled around the rue, the birdbath, and the gutter. 

While I was in the front yard the rabbit hopped past me, again headed for the neighbors' yard.  The pepper plants were flowering and starting peppers.  Lots of seeds came up but it looks like only one sort germinated.  

Lost day

I had almost no time for the delights of nature today.  In fact, I didn't get a single picture till after supper when I went outside and admired the clouds.  While outside, I spotted a rabbit coming from our blueberry patch headed into the neighbors' yard.  Alas, the fence was in the way.  

Between seasons

Sunshine on the glassy creek spoke of Fall thought the heat and humidity belonged to Summer.  The third chrysalis still had not opened.  Black swallowtail caterpillars continued chowing down on rue. A Carolina wren speared a bark butter ball and wore it like a clown nose, alas out of focus.  Hummers started drinking early.  

At lunch, a squirrel flattened its belly against a cool patch of shaded patio.  A fiery skipper insisted on a place at the mountain mint.  Afterward, I saw a juvenile night heron hunting along the edge of the creek. 

A female pondhawk guarded the rue while a bird grasshopper hung out on the hibiscus.  A sharpshooter was also on the hibiscus, but I was too close to it.  In trying for a photo, I disturbed the grasshopper who flew to the gladiolus leaves.  I saw a tiger and a palamedes swallowtail, and some sulphurs, but they didn't pause. A black swallowtail was more cooperative. 

I rescued a skink despite its best efforts to drown.  Many other skinks were out and about.  The rabbit hopped past me while I was in the deep end of the pool.  A female eastern amberwing dragonfly hung out with the wasps around the mountain mint.  Wikipedia claims that both appearance and behavior mimic wasps. 

We had to refresh the hummers' juice.  I heard a crow and then saw a red tailed hawk fly away.  After that lots more birds appeared.  Great crested flycatchers appeared to find plenty to catch in the trees.  A young mockingbird might have been after dogwood berries or hackberries.  Brown headed nuthatches wanted sunflower seeds and one made the ratcheting squeak for which they're known. 

I came in to shed my swimsuit and when I next looked, a brown thrasher and a downy woodpecker confronted each other across the barkbutter.  Then two squirrels chased madly up the feeder pole and back, disturbing a female bluebird.  After that, it got quiet again. 

Ruby throat!

There was a storm in the night that flooded the feeders and we were a bit late getting them refreshed.  A male ruby throated hummingbird slipped in and got a couple of good drinks in between the females.  Half the time the light was wrong and his throat appeared black. 
 A big skink with a tiny tail hurried under cover.  I wonder if it was the one I saw last week that had just lost its tail.  Black swallowtails seemed frantic to get eggs laid.  The usual bees and wasps were back at the mountain mint.  Like the hummer's throat, lighting that hit just right made the great golden digger wasp's face shine like metal.  A blue dasher kept watch from a bamboo stake. 

The storm had dumped tree debris in the water, including lots of pine needles.  I saved a scarab beetle clinging to some needles and a sidewalk tiger beetle swimming with its almost invisibly thin legs.  I also fished out a caterpillar and K found a horntail.  The caterpillar eventually revived and I left it in a clump of parsley.  I also moved another caterpillar from an almost denuded milkweed to the butterfly milkweed. 

In preparation for the remnant of Hurricane Laura, I turned the plastic end tables upside down, but I had to turn one back up because it had two monarch chrysalises. hanging from the underside.  The cottontail grazed under the azaleas.  

Breezy

One of the finches didn't look exactly like the others and turned out to be a juvenile bluebird.  Hummers arrived so steadily they sucked the feeder dry.  They also wasted energy chasing each other.  A pileated woodpecker shot across the yard and disappeared into the trees. 

Honeybees joined the throng on the mountain mint. I noticed spider mites were starting to spread among the flowers.  This year I know enough to get rid of the infected areas.  Four monarch caterpillars demolished the butterfly milkweed.  An adult monarch flew past and kept going, wisely.

When I lifted the skimmer basket, it was far too heavy.  The reason was a bullfrog.  It leaped out and I threw myself across the skimmer opening to keep it from going down the pipe and drowning.  The next I saw of it was eyes above the water in the deep end, but before I could do anything, the wind pushed the beach ball right at it.  That was the last I saw of the frog today.  While prowling around the pool deck looking for the frog, I startled a skink.  I did rescue some beetles and bees and a couple of young spiders.

Dragonflies occupied two perches.  Some others stayed on the wing.  I found two black swallowtail caterpillars on the rue.  They were still in the orange instar that looks a bit like monarchs.  The one that got eaten the other day had turned green.  Bad camera focus revealed an early black-and-white instar as well.

A male goldfinch made several visits to the ant moat for a drink.  Blue jays kept their distance. 

in the late afternoon, the cottontail returned to eat my morning glories.  At supper, a bird grasshopper sauntered along the top step, appearing at times to lay eggs.  Sunset was very orange.

Cool for August

Clouds kept the temperature down, but not the humidity. The first hibiscus flower of the second round of blooming opened.   Bees and wasps, and even flies preferred the tiny mountain mint flowers.  A duskywing skipper joined the crowd.  A couple of dragonflies zipped through without pausing. 

In the pool a spider walked on the surface tension.  A camel cricket was having a harder time so I rescued it.  Minuscule swallowtail caterpillars ate tiny holes in the parsley.  A black swallowtail laid more eggs on the rue.  The butterfly milkweed had seedpods started but the other milkweeds hadn't even bloomed. Caterpillars ate several of them to bare stalks.  And a monarch came to lay more eggs

Skinks enjoyed the reprieve from rain.  But one crept up on another and ambushed it.  A hummer rejected the feeder and checked out each plant, to no avail.  Eventually I got the feeder replaced, but then the recently refrigerated sugar water was too cold.  The hummers waited till it came up to air temperature. 

A red bellied woodpecker made a brief stop at the bark butter.  A Carolina wren sat on the chair and scolded the feeder.  A bluebird family visited and the fledgling confused me by going to the seed feeder.  A molting pine warbler chose bark butter.  

I heard a kingfisher about 4pm and eventually spotted it on one of the pilings, but redwood fronds were in the way and my wiggling around for an unobstructed view must have alerted the bird.  I think it had a fish.  I spied a rabbit in the grass beyond the maple tree.  The rain held off till 5pm and then was just a sprinkle.

Rabbit!

Hummers pronounced the juice satisfactory.  An abundance of dragonflies included blue dashers, skimmers, and a big darner. The mountain mint began blooming. 

Hot sunshine was frequently interrupted by clouds, some wispy, some heavy with unshed water.  Daylilies were at their peak, as were gladiolus.  A rabbit led me to the blueberries, that is, to discover that some were ripe or almost ripe.  Rabbits have been scarce since the fox years.  Of course we haven't been growing vegetables either. 

A happy blue jay settled in on the bark butter balls.  But then crows arrived.  The furious blue jay kamikazi dived on its larger corvid cousins. 

A skipper feasted on the daisies.  I found quite a few spiders in the pool.  Some were wolf spiders that like walking on water but others looked like baby crab spiders.  I also found two kinds of snail, a big glass snail and a tiny, perhaps freshly hatched snail with a pointed spiral.  A fly with a shiny green body rested on a violet leaf. 

A bluebird caught the late sun from a high twig in the oak. 

Split screen

Morning was sunny, hot and humid, followed by afternoon rain.  And the sky for the last several days has had a split personality with a sunny blue sky on one side and a brooding, wrathful mass of thunderheads on the opposite side. The change was abrupt from one to the other.

A juvenile night heron crabbed in the high tide that inundated our lawn.  I spotted an orb web in the wooded patch.  Milkweed bugs mated on a seed pod.  A black swallowtail looked for vegetation to egg.  A paper wasp hunted caterpillars.  A blue jay up in the oak ignored me.  An egret and a cormorant rested o the snag in the lake. 

On the way home from an evening meeting, we waited for a small rabbit that was crossing the church driveway.  

Overcast

A couple of titmice came for seeds but did not return.  I caught a bluebird emerging from the nestbox.  Wrens were active around their birdhouse.  Hummers and blue jays dined.  And a male cardinal again went after something on the parsley - not the caterpillar. An egret watched the dam outfall.  A fledgling cardinal with a dark beak foraged under the feeder. 

A dead bunny was floating in the water.  Small, pale butterflies jittered back and forth as they flew.  The black swallowtail caterpillar consumed an entire head of parsley flowers.  A great blue skimmer perched and something darker zipped around, but there were not a lot of dragonflies today. 

Busy birds

A lady hummer visited.  Two male goldfinches held glaring contests over the sunflowers.  The female showed up later.  A male house finch watched the goldfinches from the feeder. And a juvenile finch tried to figure out what part of the sunflower was edible, after annoying its father for handouts.  A downy woodpecker also attempted to gather sunflower seeds!  Titmice slipped onto the feeder whenever the regulars permitted.  A dove wandered around the patio and the juvenile cardinal tested everything on it for edibility.  The house wrens stayed busy bring food to the birdhouse.  Clouds out of the West blew past swiftly. 

In the late morning I saw a skink, a blue dasher dragonfly, and a black swallowtail.  During lunch another, very tiny skink darted amongst the rosemary twigs.  A Needham's (I think) skimmer paused on a perch.  A tiger swallowtail and a fritillary of some sort passed through.  The feeder was very full of house finches, and fledglings begged from the hangers. 

While I was in the pool a tiny golden brown damsel fly landed beside me.  A cicada killer buzzed by.  There was a goldfinch chase.  A hummer, a squirrel, and a goldfinch ignored me as I dripped dry.  I picked some wild cherries - not bad.

At suppertime, the bunny peeked out under a chair.  The house finch fed his fledglings while a goldfinch drank from the hummer feeder.  The hummer visited too.

Beautiful day with a storm at noon.

Clouds rushed past on a wind from the Southwest.  Titmice and goldfinches came for breakfast, along with chickadees.

I had a lunch meeting in Norfolk and the closer I got, the darker the clouds got, till there was a downpour.  I don't think so much rain fell back here at home.  Between that meeting and an evening event, I spent no time in the back yard. 

While we were eating supper a hummer visited.  The goldfinch pair showed up too.  And then, we spotted a baby bunny in the grass.  That is certainly proof the foxes have departed.  I last saw one a month ago.  And I haven't seen a rabbit, let alone a baby bunny, in the yard for two years.