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.  

High winds

The sky stayed overcast all day even as the wind got stronger.  Since it was blowing from the south, the temperature reached above 70.  At breakfast, the creek was quite with muted reflections freckled by wind-blown tree detritus.  Blue jays queued up for barkbutter balls.  The crows expressed interest too.  Then along came the black cat.  

A myrtle warbler that was almost finished molting prospected for suet crumbs.  Soon a white throat did the same.  A pine warbler preferred barkbutter balls.  And the red bellied woodpecker preferred seeds.  She has a very flexible neck.  

A starling exhibited a new behavior.  Two of them were working on a remnant of suet when one flew to the ground and picked up a beakfull of twigs or pine needles.  It then flew back to the suet and dropped the twigs.  I don't know if that was a nesting impulse or a threat of some sort.  

Two brown headed nuthatches shared the seed feeder.  A pine warbler had some suet.  A white breasted nuthatch had some seeds.  I went out front to plant some seeds.  When I came back a downy woodpecker bumped a cardinal off the seed feeder perch.  The cardinal returned when the downy left, only to be chased away by another male cardinal.  The mockingbird pair visited. 

The spartina that was planted last year came back up.  I saw large birds flying but vegetation kept me from being sure if they were pelicans.  The water looked well churned by the wind with a raft of tree fragments stretched along its length.  

Five skinks

All the spiders were safe in their webs, but the one in the mountain mint might outgrow its skin at the rate it was catching meals.  The hornworm was stuffing itself too.  There were some red leaves and berries on the dogwood, and the beauty berries were beginning to turn color.  The spartina was in bloom. 

The sixth skink had drowned, but I rescued four bluetails and one full grown five-lined skink.  I also rescued a cicada and several beetles. 

A couple of great crested flycatchers hopscotched around the trees.  Carolina wrens and a brown thrasher also played hard to see.  A downy woodpecker wanted suet but was anxious about our proximity.  Brown headed nuthatches landed on the suet as soon as we went indoors. 

The dog has chosen a napping spot in the violets right next to the first Argiope.  Today the spider ignored the dog.  

Wonderful weather

I got really frustrated with the camera's insistence on focusing on anything but the subject.  I missed a red breasted nuthatch, a mockingbird, pelicans, and I forget what else.  Other than that, it was a very lovely Easter, warm and sunny.  The pileated woodpecker visited during breakfast, but the camera focused on the dogwood in the background.  A red bellied woodpecker followed, and a downy after that.  I did get a photo of the rear end of something on the seed feeder, maybe the brown headed nuthatch. 

Crows were still hanging around.  The brown thrashers found the new location of the barkbutter balls.  The Carolina wrens divvied up the feeders.  Pine and yellow rumped warblers stayed with the suet. 

Squirrels were in love, wrestling and play chasing between the cedar and the dogwood.  Occasionally one would get the munchies and stop for a snack.  

A great blue heron stalked along the bulkhead. A great egret hunted below the dam until a heron usurped its fishing hole.  An osprey circled overhead.  Crows investigated something in the dam spillway.  The spartina was sprouting along the shore.  I pulled out a lot of leucojum but there was plenty more. 

Caterpillar time

There were eight monarch caterpillars ranging from about a centimeter to full grown.  I picked the "cent" off the swamp milkweed which was still recovering from the aphid infestation and added it to the swarm on the butterfly milkweed.  Several of those were chowing down on the flowers.  I don't know if milkweed flowers were tastier or more tender or if this was a strategy to discourage wasps that might be caterpillar hunters.  If the milkweed sets no seed, that seems counterproductive in the long run.

Black swallowtail caterpillars ate a potted parsley down to the roots.  I dou't know what they did when they ran out of parsley - there was no other suitable food plant in the front yard.  In the back yard, I could just barely see some very young caterpillars on a parsley plant.  Four larger caterpillars, but still first instar, were on the rue which can take care of itself.  At least, it has never appeared to suffer from too many caterpillars.

A cloudless sulphur proved too fast for me to capture.  I did get a bird grasshopper.  I rescued another, different grasshopper that was drowning.  It was light brown and mottled like bark.  I also saved a skink that had found the top step of the ladder but was stuck there, cold and wet and looking sad.  Nevertheless, it tried to swim away from me.

A titmouse was unwilling to visit the feeder while we sat outside.  The beauty berries were rapidly turning purple.  The spartina was blooming.  Two days after the new moon, the tide was still quite low. 

Still cool

The sun was back, but both wind and water were chilly. We left early and I didn't see anything of note before lunch.  Then the hummer kept watch on her feeder. A couple of "sleepy orange" butterflies flitted past the window but did not return for a photo.

We had a plague of dead frogs - I found four in the skimmer and another five on the pool bottom.  Y U C K !  There were also many drowned crickets, both field and camel.  I was able to save a live skink though. I also fished out a honeybee and rescued a black and white jumping spider from the water and it could hardly be persuaded to leave me. 

The spartina was blooming.  I was unable to locate the three argiope spiders that had webs in the spartina, but I did find the egg sack one of them made. The bad weather might have been too much for them.  But I did find one argiope in the wild cherry, about ten feet up.  Could it have blown there from the marsh? 

The sunset tinted clouds a smoky orange.  After sunset I happened to be looking out the window when a bug tripped a thread of web and a big spider shot out of nowhere to seize it, wrap it, and carry it back to the corner where it hid.  Later a moth landed on a different window.

Clouds returned

Hummers breakfasted despite the coming and going of the seed eaters.  When I returned in the late morning, a female goldfinch was drinking from the ant moat in the hummingbird feeder.  A young skink crossed the patio in no hurry. After lunch a hummer settled into the dead dogwood twigs.

A blue dasher used one of the perches.  A butterfly sat on the orange beachball but it flew before I got a good look.  Others flitted around including one cloudless sulphur.  I saw eggs on the parsley, but no caterpillars there or on the rue.  The usual bees and wasps visited the herbs.  A flock of winged ants had landed on a leaf raft while others floated in the water.  A dead caterpillar also floated.  I don't know what it was, but it was long and slender, not swallowtail or monarch.

The spartina started to bloom.  And the chaste tree continued to put out the occasional spike of flowers.  The milkweed recovered amazingly fast - leaves were almost full grown.  The cloud cover broke apart at sunset and turned colors.  Fireflies came out before it was fully dark.  I do not remember seeing them this late in the year before. 

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. 

Lots of birds

More chickadees than usual tried to edge in among the cardinals and house finches.  So did a tufted titmouse.  A female goldfinch got a drink form the hummer feeder.  Meanwhile, a hummer checked out the morning glories but appeared unsatisfied.  Bees liked them better.  K said the full moon was setting when she opened the sunflower cafe.

A pair of doves poked through the mulch.  A male goldfinch showed up and the female returned.  Yellow butterflies - cloudless sulphur and tiger swallowtail - defeated the photographer as usual.  A hairstreak was too far away.  A damselfly hung around the pool till I tried to photograph it.  A gray tiger beetle ran across the patio.  I also glimpsed a young skink.  A brown thrasher scuttled under the cedar.  A squirrel ate dogwood berries.  The hummer feeder ran out of juice.

While there was plenty of blue earlier, the sky clouded up in the late afternoon.  I found the dragonfly nymph dead but may have seen another still alive.  It appears to be a wandering glider (Pantala flavescens) or at least something in the Libellulidae family.  The water was murky from my brushing algae so I cannot be sure about the second one.  The algae had gotten so out-of-hand that it made biofilms and when I brushed them off the pool sides they made green veils in the water.  I rescued a beetle and a wasp and found a feather.  The brown thrasher and the hummer came back.  Two wrens cussed at each other in a dogwood.  The spartina has begun to bloom. 

After dark the window became a bug magnet.  An angle-wing katydid looked huge.  Smaller stuff scurried around the glass.  Moonlight penetrated the clouds, but the moon itself wasn't visible.

Quiet

I noticed the hummer feeder was dry yesterday so now it is refilled.  But there's not much action at the seed feeder either.  The creek was golden at dawn and it is still sunny though there are clouds. It was cool and we had the windows open overnight but it was surprisingly quiet.  Usually the tree crickets are singing till dawn. 

I spent the late afternoon on the dock but didn't get any good photos except this feather floating in the spartina.  An egret had passed by earlier.  Cormorants and gulls and maybe an eagle flew over.  Mallards and geese paddled.  Titmice flitted among the trees.  Spider threads floated on the breeze.  Crows kicked up a fuss but it was not clear why.  The spartina is blooming.

September morning

The air is cool and breezy without humidity.  The sky is mostly blue with puffs.  The morning glories are bright and bees are feasting.  Five doves came to breakfast.  The cardinal fledgling didn't know what to make of them.  Then a squirrel arrived and they all went off in a huff.  Eager finches jockey for a place on the feeder with chickadees.  Fresh juice awaits a hummer.

A bird I think is a song sparrow has been hopping around.  It looks like its beak is damaged.  Later photos reveal a tumor like the one the eagle chick had a couple of years ago.  I'm assuming this is the result of avian pox.  I sent the information in for Mary Reid Barrow's column.

Cardinals, doves, and finches have been ubiquitous.  A palamedes swooped through the patio several times while my hands were full.  Other butterflies are busy over by the cherry.  I caught a glimpse of the tail of a skink. A red spotted purple and a hairstreak both defeated the camera. I think I saw a monarch as well. 

Lots of sky drama as clouds pass and make sunbeams.  It is quite windy and that along with the lower temperature is slowing the butterflies and keeping them lower.  I finally got an identifiable photo of an Eastern Comma butterfly.  A mockingbird started in on the beauty berries. 

The spartina is blooming, as much as grass ever blooms. Something across the creek upset the crows and a huge flock gathered, including some jays, to screech at whatever it was.  This went on for an hour.  I never saw what they were after but it was high up a tall pine. After I gave up and left the dock, a female kingfisher perched on a piling.