Hot and cold

Yesterday was very warm - over 80°.  But I saw nothing.  Today, under a gray sky, the temperature dropped steadily and the wind gained strength.  The directionless light made the dogwood leaves quite crimson and the sassafras golden.  Fluff from the saltbushes blew everywhere.  The maple tree lost more than half its leaves.  A titmouse visited the barkbutter dish.  

Still summery

Turtles were out basking on their log.  Contrails turned to cirrus wisps.  I thought I found a puffball.  I definitely found an empty monarch chrysalis.  The fungus by the oak appeared to be finished growing.  Beautyberries were disappearing, helped by a mockingbird.  

A great blue heron stood on a piling at low tide while mallards paddled around.  Sassafras leaves turned yellow.  Small clusters of golden leaves popped out of the green oak foliage as well.  Milkweed parachutes opened.  Red magnolia seeds poked out of their pods.  Yellow rumped warblers jittered among the trees. 

Bees in the camellias

The day was sunny and warm though in the early morning everything was wet.  I only got outside when the dog insisted.  Yellow sassafras leaves contrasted with the blue sky reflected in the creek.  A couple of the birds' sunflower seeds germinated.  I doubt they would survive being potted but they won't survive outdoors.  Both honeybees and yellow jackets buzzed around the camellias.  I think I saw larger wasps as well.  A lone turtle basked on the lake.  

Caterpillar season

I've been finding drowned caterpillars and today there were several.  They've all been hairless and some combination of pale, greenish, reddish, and blackened. I don't know if the colors are the result of the pool water, but they don't look normal.  A frog was waiting for me, very listless, but it managed a hop when I put it outside the pool. Other than that, there were lots of leaves, mostly withered, and a very persistent mosquito that I think I drowned.

The sassafras started to show fall colors.  Hummer(s?) kept feeding all day but I didn't see any chasing so maybe it was just one.  By supper time, the bird was very round. 

Rain at last

The morning sun was pretty fierce but thick clouds kept rolling North so the UV exposure was intermittent.  I didn't see any wildlife till I headed out for a swim in the late morning.  The female common whitetail was back. A robber fly had seized what looked like a housefly.  Yay for insect predators! 

The maroon daylily had seven flowers.  I rescued two mama spiders each with a pearl full of eggs bigger than the mother.  They resisted rescue, but they were sitting on the handle of the skimmer basket so I insisted.  Leafcutter bees and other insects fed on the butterfly milkweed flowers that were half hidden by the mountain mint.

Meanwhile the clouds were getting more frequent, darker, and more ominous.  I saw a dragonfly with spotted wings zip overhead.  A wasp approached from beneath the foam of a spittlebug on a mountain mint stalk.  I don't know if it was after the larva, or what.  The all-black bee reappeared on the milkweed.  A bumblebee visited too, and a little sweat bee. 

A male goldfinch sought a drink from the ant moat.  The water was a good inch below the rim - remember this.  An egret stalked upstream. That caused me to notice that the sassafrass came back. 

Yesterday someone predicted a "drenching thunderstorm," a meteorological label I had not heard before.  The prognosticator was off by a day, but this afternoon we did indeed have a drenching thunderstorm.  It saved me from having to water.  It refilled the ant moats and washed the guano off the mountain mint that sprouted too close to the barkbutter dish.  

Speaking of which, after the rain passed a female red bellied woodpecker reluctantly ate mushy barkbutter balls.  A blue jay followed.  I missed catching bluebirds, a Carolina wren, and a brown headed nuthatch on camera. Hummers visited but stayed on the far side of the feeder.  

In the evening I startled a mockingbird.  A snail on the patio headed for cover.  A small slug had ascended the wall part way.  I began to feel bugged and went inside to type this while fireflies signaled outside the window.  

Humid

I spent the morning getting my foot treated.  But nothing much crossed the patio except a couple of squirrels.  The beautyberries and dogwood berries were loaded but I didn't see any birds eating them.  Sassafras leaves were beginning to turn yellow and orange.  The saltbush was in bloom.  In the afternoon, a great blue heron and a dozen mallards hung out on the dock.  

Northeaster

Carolina wrens cleaned the dish feeder.  Hummers needed a lot of fuel.  They checked out the flowers as well as the feeder.  Titmice wanted seeds and more seeds. 

At lunch, a fresh-looking palamedes swallowtail enjoyed the butterfly milkweed.  But according to Bug Guide, the red bay and sassafras that palamedes caterpillars need is endangered by an invasive beetle that spreads a fungus wilt. 

The wind from the Northeast was cold and gusty.  It pushed the Bay back up the creeks. High tide nearly covered the dock in the afternoon. A juvenile night heron seemed puzzled by the high water.

A nasty, cold, thin rain fell as I tried to clean detritus from the water.  One hummer took to sitting on the seed feeder hanger to guard the hummer feeder. The little brown mantis still haunted the rose bush. The hibiscus was still blooming. 

Wet

Overnight rain dampened all activity apparently because I saw nothing.  The air was warm under a gray sky.  We gave up on the hummingbird feeder and put out a block of suet.  Nobody noticed.

The sassafras turned yellow.  The creek was quiet. 

April showers

A male downy came for a breakfast of suet.   One band of rain passed through after lunch.  The rain was light until suddenly it became a "frog strangler."  And then it was over.  The sky stayed threatening, but I did not get wet.

One redbud started blooming.  Violets, azaleas, sassafras, jessamine, narcissus and money plant flowers all awaited pollination.  Turtles and cormorants were warm enough not to mind the rain.  A yellow rumped warbler looked a little bedraggled as it ate suet.

A couple of geese came up the slope nibbling grass and accompanied by a Muscovy duck.  I stood up and they saw me and scuttled back down to the water.  I think I saw them last year with that duck,  I wonder if the duck hatched in a goose nest?  Some Muscovy ducks "dump" eggs in other nests and I did find accounts of geese raising ducks.

April fools

Morning was nice for Easter services.  The weather played some tricks as the wind shifted from the Southwest to the Northwest bringing chilling clouds in the late afternoon. Insects of all sorts awakened and emerged. I saw (and was too awestruck to photograph) a mourning cloak butterfly with its gold trim blazing in the sunlight.  A cabbage white, wasps, tiny moths and midges flew around me. 

A male downy woodpecker went to work on the suet.  The yellow rumped warbler made do with the mealworm dish.  I saw what might have been a least flycatcher.  A blue jay was busy with something at the base of the cedar by the dock.  Another was under the neighbors' feeder.  Then I definitely saw a bluegray gnatcatcher, maybe more as it never stayed put.  White throats hopped through the understory trees and bushes.  A house finch defied a cardinal and won, but eventually they compromised. 

The sunnyside narcissus opened.  The sassafras started to bloom only to have a squirrel eat the flowers.  The cherry had scattered flowers.  Some ajuga popped up where I thought it was long gone. Periwinkle snails were abundantly visible as the tide was blown very low.  It exposed the trap that worried me last year, but a couple of girls retrieved it.

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. 

Windy

A rain shower passed through after 8am.  Before that, red tempered cardinals and finches argued.  Juncos and white throats scoured the ground for fallen seeds.  A Carolina wren protested the empty suet feeder.  A titmouse got to the seeds.  Down by the dam, an egret and a bufflehead fished.  An osprey soared overhead.

The wind shoved the clouds off to the Northeast.  Late morning through mid day was mostly sunny.  I tried a friend's trick with the suet - leaving the packaging on all but one side and hanging it horizontally with the open side down.  At lunch, nothing had discovered it.  In facts there were no birds at all.  The white butterfly flitted and fat bees bumbled around. The narcissus I think of as fried eggs opened overnight. 

Another shower passed through in the late afternoon while the sun was out low in the West.  Geese and a mallard drake ignored it.  Tiny sassafras flowers opened and sweet gum flower spikes poked up.  Sunset was colorful, tangy orange to the West and pink overhead and North.  The sky seemed to be clearing. 

Hot!

The day began with some mist and less than the usual birdsong.  White throats were out in force and warblers were battling over the suet.

The sun burned through by mid-morning.  At lunch time a black swallowtail and a cabbage white flitted around.  The swallowtail spent her time egging the rue as there isn't much parsley after the hard winter.  Canada geese had a commotion that involved a threesome.  The temperature aspired to summer heights.

The noon haze congealed into afternoon overcast with occasional moments of sun.  A gusty wind moderated the humid heat.  Even though it's been dry I found a mushroom.  I've never seen sassafras blossoms before, so here they are.   The red maple has gone to seed.  Money plant blossoms peeked out of the azaleas and violets poked up out of the grass.  Bees swirled around the Carolina jessamine.  Two kinds of paper wasp nibbled on the wood slats of the bench - red with yellow trim and black with red.  A yellowjacket looked for a nesting spot.  The wind grounded a black swallowtail, maybe the same one as earlier.

Downy woodpeckers got up the gumption to ignore me.  I saw a kingfisher streak by and heard it thereafter.  A flock of birds in the trees made a more musical rattle.  Unfortunately they were always back-lighted so all I know is they were dark birds with lighter beaks.  Then a little bluegray gnatcatcher started zipping around across the pool from me. 

There were lightning flashes after dark but no rain. 

Rain at last

Early sun is leaking under the clouds which just makes them look darker.  It's wet and very humid and supposed to rain again in the afternoon.  But, for now, the sky is clearing and the overnight rain wasn't enough to spread wetness under objects. This is my first telephone photo.

Before lunch, cumulus clouds raced North.  It was windy on the ground too.  A sulphur and a black swallowtail flitted about, and all sorts of bees worked on the rosemary.  A cardinal and a mockingbird tussled over the berry bushes. 

After lunch, heavy clouds moved in from the SW.  A blue jay called from atop the sweet gum.  The sassafras has suddenly turned for fall.  

A heavy rain set in later in the afternoon.