Poison ivy

The mostly gray day was still windy.  A rash showed up on my left wrist and it was too cold to go soak it in the pool.  The male bluebird developed quite an attitude.  He chased off a cardinal as well as smaller birds.  I guess he was annoyed at having to eat suet because I hadn't got the barkbutter balls out yet.  

The pine warbler was back, but not early enough to escape the bluebird.  Mockingbirds and blue jays were too big for the bluebird to intimidate, but he tried.  The yard crew found a black snake and were all in a tizzy about it. 

The sand for the living shoreline has created an inviting path for waterfowl to mosey up into the back yard.  A flock of eight mallards congregated there while a family of geese paddled past them.  

Drama

When I got up, the sky was gray and threatening, but little rain fell overnight and the clouds began to break up shortly after breakfast. The usual domestic squabble between pileated woodpeckers entertained me as I ate. Afterward, a bluebird and a house finch complained that the second suet cage was empty.  By mid morning turtles had climbed up onto their log.  

Then I noticed a crow climbing about in the saltbush  The reason for this puzzling behavior revealed itself to be  a black rat snake.It too was climbing the bush and slowly made its way, bush by bush, to the dock where it dropped out of sight.  A male towhee supervised from the grass.  A muskrat or nutria swam past the commotion.  

Black swallowtails flitted around the yard looking for nectar or mates.  A mockingbird mostly contented itself with suet crumbs.  A female red bellied woodpecker arrived to make more crumbs.  That attracted a second mockingbird.  Two brown headed nuthatches shared the seed feeder perch. 

In the afternoon I spotted a pied bill grebe on the creek.  It raised its wings repeatedly or flapped them and seemed to be preening.  There were enough clouds to catch sunset colors and turn orange. 

Another deluge

Spider threads glittered in the early light after breakfast.  The third quarter moon was overhead.  I remembered when I was a kid, the moon terminology confused me - I could see 1/2 of a moon, not 1/4. 

 A great blue heron lurked on the lake.  Lots of dragonflies wanted a foothold on one of my perches.  A little green heron prowled along the mud shoreline. 


I rescued a mama spider, a green stink bug, beetles, wasps, and a tiny millipede.  A small frog was in the skimmer.  A couple of swallowtails danced in the air.  Bees and wasps enjoyed mountain mint.  Later I saw a fiery and a silver spotted skipper. 

 Hummingbirds visited and I saw at least one chase another away.  Skinks ran about the patio.   A swallow flew over but I missed it again. 

After lunch a black rat snake passed through, scaring a squirrel. It was headed in the right direction to catch whatever made the tunnels on the West side of the house.  It or something scared a frog so it jumped into the pool.  I think I saw a Coopers hawk pursued by a crow, but it happened very fast.

Big drops of rain fell around 3:30pm then trailed off until the thunderstorm hit around 4pm. 

Humid

The windows ere fogged and the patio chairs dripped with dew.  We started preparing for the  arrival of Hurricane Dorian.  The sky was white but the sheet of cloud was thin enough that the day was sunny.  Fluffy cumulus clouds moved below the overcast. 

Light blue morning glories were blooming all over.  Titmice visited the seed feeder and hummers came for liquid refreshment.  A squirrel's muzzle was stained with pecan hull juice.  The wrens were back.  

I caught a glimpse of a shy red bellied woodpecker before it took off.  While I was taking pictures of a fledgling wren, between one click and the next, its perch was taken by a male house finch.  He almst seemed to be saying, aren't I cute too?

Two skinks a-swimming will live thanks to me.  I found a couple of drowned monarch caterpillars and discovered that the swamp milkweed had been stripped of leaves.  Then I found a live caterpillar hustling along so I relocated it to what may be a milkweed sprout. The mantis continued to haunt the rosebush. 

The beauty berries were all shades of green, red, or purple.  A snake swam downstream but I didn't get the camera refocused before the salt bushes hid it.  Later, a pair of mallards preened along the water's edge.  And a mockingbird feasted on the beauty berries, but by then the light was fading. 

Warm

We had indoor temperatures outside. Pollen began leaving a bathtub ring of yellow on the margins of the creek.  The water was quiet and reflective.  Shingles blew off in the storm and squirrels acted like the fallen shingles might jump up and mug them. 

Some blue jays hung around in the trees.   I believe they were catching wasps!  A yellow jacket was attracted to the hummer feeder but gave up.  Only a few turtles crawled out to bask.

Something made rings of ripples close to shore, but I've no idea if it was a critter or methane bubbles.  Then I noticed a narrow V wake speeding downstream.  As I suspected, it was a snake.

I took pictures of a lot of flowers, and later, the crescent moon.

Thunderstorm

All day I waited for the storm but it didn't happen till 5pm.  Before that, clouds gathered and dissipated several times. I got into the pool before lunch because I expected the storm in the early afternoon.  Spiders and a click beetle were lucky I did. One spider was a mama wolf, maybe the one that was on the ladder yesterday. 

The sky was overcast at breakfast.  A juvenile male cardinal was hanging around the feeder.  Hummers were feeding eagerly. A slaty skimmer maintained a vigilant guard on the bark butter.  Big carpenter bees worked over the milkweed.  Tiny pollinators preferred the portulaca.  So did a skipper.

When I got out of the water and sat to drip, a skink appeared and hunted for something all over the walkway on the creek side of the pool.  It went up nearly to the ladder back and forth from the mulch to the pool edge.  It continued around the corner and up to me where it may have heard the camera noise.  Anyway, it hid under the flip-flop on my foot!  The sky cleared while I was in the water so I needed to find some shade. 

A tiger swallowtail tantalized me by flitting slowly, but never alighting.  The male goldfinch came for water.  Apparently the sunflower seeds don't meet his discriminating taste..  The young cardinal seemed alarmed by the sound of thunder.  A brown thrasher scuttled along under the shrubbery.  Then a palamedes swallowtail took up the role of camera tease. 

The storm came on while I was in the shower.  It was as though night had come at 5pm.  And then blinding rain fell and a sheet of water poured off the roof.  Apparently the rain flooded wherever our resident snake had been living because the poor thing went side-winding across the patio.  For once, I got lucky - I was taking a picture of the watering can in the rain when the snake appeared. 

Lightening didn't get going until the rain had slackened.  I wasted effort trying to catch a bolt.  Apparently the storm was worse in Norfolk and an underpass flooded.  Chickadees and hummers did not wait for the storm to pass before they returned to their feeders. Finally the clouds thinned and we got a bit of sunshine before sunset. 

Ssssssnake!

Clouds streamed out of the South but the day was mostly dry.  I got rained on in the pool and so did the camera.  But I was glad I had it when I discovered I wasn't alone in the water. No thicker than a pencil, the snake crossed the patio and went down the steps at lunch.  Later I encountered it in the pool and managed to flip it out.  It sat in a knot on the concrete for quite some time but finally disappeared when I was looking at something else. The best match was a juvenile black racer.

I fished a glass snail out of the water too and some June beetles, both green and brown.  Dragonflies enjoyed the humidity and the bugs it brought.  Two buckeye butterflies fed on the mint.  They ignored the wasps but occasionally quarreled with each other.  A dark swallowtail was not easy to identify, maybe palamedes, maybe black.  A sizeable skink climbed the wall of the house and explored the new window.  Later I saw one on the steps that may have been the same, 

Wrens went back and forth to their house and fussed at me when I came close.  Titmice came for seeds and hummers for sugar water.  A great and a snowy egret watched the runoff from the dam.  An osprey circled against the clouds.

I was calm with the snake but when a spider started hiking up my leg in the shower,that was another story.  I brushed it away and it waved its front legs at me in a crab spider pose. I told it, "don't walk on me and I won't step on you."  I left it sulking in the corner. 

Up early again

This time I saw a juvenile night heron. It was in the grass at first, but something (me?) disturbed it so it flew to a dock post.  A cardinal tried to get the seed feeder to open, then settled for a bark butter ball.  At breakfast hummers and a blue jay came to eat.

On our return from the doctor, well after 11am, in the driveway was a black rat snake!  It's head was raised about an inch and the rest of it was crimped into zigzags by fear.  K carefully drove past and we proceeded to unload me while keeping an eye on the snake.  It did not wait till I could get the camera, alas, but poured itself into the grass heading toward the neighbors' magnolia.  At least that was away from the bluebird box.  Nor was the snake bulgy with a fresh dinner.  Some bird I didn't see kept whistling. 

In the back yard, dragonflies were enjoying the sunshine and gnats. A cardinal went after something in the sakaki.  I think I saw skinny little legs sticking out of his beak.  Two hummers argued over the feeder. 

After lunch I decided to sit outside in front. The same dragonflies were around but they had a harder time perching.  I need to give them some bamboo stakes.  Wasps were investigating potential nest sites.  A couple of dead mulch roaches gave us pause.  Eventually,a blue tailed skink ventured along the wall, but I had put the camera aside.  Then the bluebirds came home.

The breeze began to feel chilly so I tottered back in and watched the feeders. Those cardinals were still courting.  Hummers stocked up for the night.  And the a Carolina wren showed up, with the light too poor for a photo.  Fireflies were already blinking.  Then bedtime was full of alarms and excursions and bug spray when I saw another mulch roach on the ceiling.  Yes, they can fly. 

S-s-s-snake!

The morning creek was bright and glassy but the breeze soon roughened the surface.  A brown thrasher was visible at breakfast.  It went for beauty berries and there was not yet enough light to photograph that area.

A cobweb spider in the window had her egg sack hatch.  I would have expected the spiders to winter over as eggs.  There were slug tracks across a sheet web in the cinquefoil on the North side of my office.  Three goldenrod stalks were blooming.  As the yard has gotten more shady, just a few stalks survived.  The marsh fleabane appeared to be doing well.  The hackberry grew galls instead of berries.  Some sort of predatory bug stalked something up in the hackberry leaves.

As we finished lunch, a black rat snake appeared below the bird feeders.  It slipped across the steps and through the mulch and disappeared somewhere behind the sakaki.  It was able to raise its head about six inches to take a good look at where it planned to go.

Dragonfly day

The wind shifted back to the West which is the common summer pattern.  The rain overnight and humid morning brought out the little flying pests and that brought out the dragonflies. A yellow sided skimmer perched on the dead rosemary branch I left for that purpose.  A Halloween pennant chose the very top of the pine tree instead.  It had to battle the wind.  Blue dashers stayed down on the perches I put out.  Later I saw a pair of amberwings. 

I got up really late but not all the rain had evaporated.  Titmice were hungry all day.  Hummers too.  A night heron hunted in the dam outfall.. The female bluebird took mealworms but the male flew on to the wild cherry tree.  Swallows scooped up insects flying higher in the air.  A brown thrasher sat on the fence gate and watched the blueberries. 

At lunch, a really big fly landed on the arm of one of the patio chairs.  All I could think was horsefly, but it was a tiger bee fly.  A great golden digger wasp checked out the rue.  There were many more kinds of bees and wasps and the prize was a cicada killer.  During the afternoon an almost full grown black rat snake prowled around the patio.  Much later a skink ventured out. 

Cold front arrived

It was still hot, and sticky, most of the day.  An egret monitored the dam outfall.  A song sparrow hopped around the mulch.  A blue jay raided the mealworm dish for gifts to take courting.  It appeared that blue jays are just like cardinals in this respect.  Hummers were happy with fresh juice in cleaned feeders. 

Swallows and dragonflies indicated that there were lots of small insects flying.  But they were very hard to photograph on the wing.  An osprey was not much easier. After lunch, I was on the phone when I saw a snake swimming beside the dock.  I got the camera ready as fast as I could, but not fast enough.  Also fish kept leaping out of the water and I would see something making a bow wave from under the surface, but I could not tell what.  Canada geese paraded their goslings everywhere.

I saw a few butterflies, including a black swallowtail in the rue.  Most of the dragonflies were great blue skimmers.  I sat too close to one and it tried to steal a perch from another.  After a mid-air argument, they shared the perch.  The orb spider was still in the iris. 

I went down to the dock to investigate a bird that has been making a very loud buzzy call.  Whatever it was, it was across the creek. I saw a jellyfish and more dragonflies, but no birds.  The pool was full of critters.  A glass snail was floating as were beetles.  I rescued several spiders and a wasp.  Then a storm blew out of the NW.  Clouds gathered for about an hour before the rain began at 6pm.  It got very dark before the rain, but grew lighter once the rain was falling.

House wren arrived!

The very first bird I saw this morning was a house wren sitting on the feeder post peering nearsightedly at the yard. Then a downy woodpecker came for seeds.  A pair of goldfinches drank from the ant moat. 

A drama unfolded at the dam outfall.  A great blackback gull had something to eat and a great blue heron stood by and watched, which annoyed the gull.  Then a crow arrived and added to the tension.  An egret walked past, staying out of the drama.

As I was getting ready to leave, I saw a black rat snake along the edge of the pool deck but by the time I got to my camera it had disappeared.  I went outside to look for it and instead listened to a brown thrasher, or maybe a mockingbird, singing in the oak.  I never saw it but I glimpsed a towhee that had been whistling.  A huge bee worked on the rue.

When I came back, I saw the bluebirds carrying food to the box.  Meanwhile chattering swallows zipped across the sky.  Lots of dragonflies also zoomed across the yard but I could not get a decent picture.  And the pool was opened in the afternoon!

More sunshine

Another gorgeous June day.  At breakfast I saw a male goldfinch, titmice, and a Carolina wren I think may have been a fledgling.  The male cardinals continued to compete.  A crane fly rested on the door screen.

While I was out, I saw a blue jay and a grackle down the street, and an osprey over Bayville Park.  As I pulled into the driveway, a male widow skimmer landed on the trellis beside the lantana.

During lunch, a much tidier wren visited the mealworm feeder.  A skink wiggled its long blue tail as it poured itself into a crack, then popped out and raced off.

The way to see wonderful things is to be in the pool and without a camera.  I came upon a little brown damselfly and a tiger swallowtail flew over me.  Yet another little glass snail was bobbing in the water.  So were many beetles.  Then I saw a brown thrasher hopping up and down.  I swam closer, it flew off, and the black rat snake it had been harassing looked at me, turned and flowed down hill.  After I got out, nothing. Well, later I saw a great egret standing where the water was too deep for that to be possible.  It had perched on one of the channel markers and sunk it. 

Toward evening, a school of small fish made waves in the creek.  A lacewing came fluttering up to the patio.  A hummer turned up its beak at the feeder.  A house wren visited the birdhouse.  A male cardinal sang from high in the oak and a chickadee was bold enough to join our company.

Breezy

The West wind did not deter honeybees.  The regulars showed up at the seed feeder.  An egret flew upstream.  And a piece of rope on the concrete resolved itself into a small snake.  The sky was intensely blue with cream puff clouds.

I went down to the dock to see how things were after the flood.  An egret perched up in the trees.  Other egrets and a heron flew over.  A flock of geese paddled downstream and waddled up into the neighbors' yard.  Later one of the kids ran them off.  Mallards were out on the water and cormorants in the sky.  A small bird flew past me under the dock and landed on the next upstream.  I was facing into the sun to take its picture. A friend on HRWE identified it as a spotted sandpiper.

Last weekend's Northeaster blew the needles off that side of the redwood.  It blew over the flowering saltbush.  I saw one spike of phragmites among the spartina. The sky got hazy and streaky with pressure ridges and bubbles of cloud.  The sun was hot until it got close to the horizon. 

Hotter

A towhee worked around the edges of the yard.  The parent wrens didn't go in the birdhouse this morning, they just poked food in.  The regulars visited the feeder.  K said a fox came to the birdbath before I got up. 

The yard people said they saw a snake in the garage.  I never saw it.  Lots of dragonflies  cruised around glittering.  Two spiders in the pool gave me a hard time but were eventually rescued.  The wrens cussed everyone out.

The sun went down a deep orange ball that lit up the sky.  Then, lots of fireflies appeared. 

Thin overcast

The regulars have been hungry.  A buzzard sailed past.  Egrets are working the creek.  A house wren posed outside the birdhouse. 

In the afternoon, a black rat snake cruised through the mulch on the far side of the pool. Then a little rain fell. leaving no trace.

Getting cloudy

Cardinals, finches, doves and the towhee pair plus a female hummingbird came early. By lunch, it was just finches and cardinals.  A skink ran under the feeder apparently having no fear of the birds.  Its legs are so inconspicuous that it appears to just flow.  Cabbage butterflies, wasps and dragonflies are flitting around.

The yellow iris have come into bloom.  Chickadees don't mind my sitting outside near the feeder.  The finches were also more interested in seeds than me as long as I didn't move.  But the cardinals refused to land.

This evening the black rat snake showed up under the chair I'd been using.  You can tell it is frightened by the way it's kinked up.

Hungry critters

There are indeed two rabbits. I wonder how long I've been seeing both, just one at a time. They're nearly full grown.

The seed feeder was busy with cardinals, chickadees, titmice, and an army of house finches. I saw at least eight and maybe more at one time. The goldfinch prefers to go straight to the source, maybe because the immature seeds are smaller?

The hummingbird is still happy with the feeder I put up, but annoyed with the crowd of finches. It makes a quiet, single note chup as it feeds. I'm hearing cicadas again - I don't know where they all went the other day but they were hard at it early this morning. The tree crickets have been singing in the evenings.

Rain started around lunch time and whenever it slackened the wet birds continued to mob the feeder. The rain flushed a black rat snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) from wherever it stays and I caught it crossing the patio. A rabbit was also out in the rain. Then a brown thrasher explored the mulch next to the house.

Now that it is dark, a barn spider (Araneas cavaticusis) weaving a large web across the patio window. It will be interesting to see if anything gets caught overnight.