Evening thunderstorm

The sun shone despite a lot of thin cloud cover.  A brown thrasher marched up the steps looking for something it did not find.  When I swam today, I did not see the dragonfly nymph.  I did evict three frogs and a skinklet, and rescued a black and yellow wasp.  Other than that, the morning was uneventful.  Clouds gathered as the day went on, but even the breeze was hot.  Then dark came early as heavy clouds blew in, dropped the temperature, and dumped buckets of rain.  Clearly, I pushed my luck too far with the figs. 

 

Donner und Blitzen

A small sunflower bloomed yesterday.  Then it rained substantially overnight.  More was predicted so I swam in the morning.  Beetles, ants, wasps, and roaches were afloat but I only rescued beetles.  Afterward, I glimpsed a dragonfly and a cabbage white.  The New England aster was blooming.  So was the beautyberry.  At lunch, crows and squirrels ate mealworms.  Carolina wrens and bluebirds were unhappy that the dishes were covered against future rain.  A blown leaf fragment fooled me into thinking it was a mantis.  

A thunderstorm arrived around 2:30pm  and rain hammered the pavement.  By 3pm the thunder was loud and the lightning close, while the light was very low.  We lost Internet connectivity for about 22 hours.

Spider season

A Carolina wren poked through the seed trough.  I saw the first daylily flower, at least first for our yard.  The crow was back for another bath.  We got some sun in the early afternoon and I attacked the algae in the pool.  Several of the walks-on-water spiders avoided me but I persuaded one to move to dry land.  A crab spider was much more cooperative.  I also fished out a pretty little insect with black wings and a red head, possibly a wasp.  

Later in the afternoon we had a short deluge and a couple of thunder showers.   A crane fly tried to get through the window.  When the rain stopped a blue jay arrived and considered the wet barkbutter balls.  After dark, I saw a moth at a window.  

Northeaster

I skipped yesterday because it was gloomy and windy and damp and lacking in wildlife.  Today was about the same with higher tides and a few of the usual birds - cardinals, chickadees, geese.  There were some flickers of sun before noon but mostly there was drizzle.  A flood warning will last into tomorrow, courtesy of what was briefly Tropical Storm Jerry.  Somewhere along the way we also had Karen named and dissipated.  Anyway, they left us with a wind from the Northeast to push water into the estuaries.  

Stormy

Breakfast was dark with thunder and rain. When it lightened a little mid morning, birds dashed to the seed feeder.  One was a tailless male cardinal.The rain fell all day, sometimes by the bucketful and the wind gusted fiercely.  Pine needles carpeted the patio.  When I checked the NWS radar, the storm seemed to be spinning over the mouth of the Bay and slowly rolling West.  The storm really looked like a hurricane with the creek flooding. 

 

 

Hail!

At breakfast, a fledgling bluebird roosted on the seed feeder perch with its back to the food.  Clueless!  When it finally left, a brown headed nuthatch took over.  Then an adult male bluebird arrived.  The fancy ruffled daylily put out a flower and the orange daylily was still blooming.  I left for a meeting followed by a picnic.  We had sunshine, low 80s, and a stiff breeze which I think kept the mosquitoes away.  In fact, I didn't see any insects except for the ubiquitous cabbage white.  

Cumulus clouds boiled up across the sky after mid day.  A male cardinal was on the feeder when I got home, seeming anxious.  And no wonder because another male showed up and kicked the first one off.  It appeared to me that the dominant male was beginning to go bald.  A brown headed nuthatch waited for a turn.  Then a female bluebird wanted to know why the dish feeders were still empty.  I referred her to the National Weather Service. 

Fortunately the bad weather held off till late afternoon.  But the storm at supper was very impressive.  It came in waves with peanut-size hail.  I thought it was clearing at sunset but another wave came through growling with thunder.  The temperature dropped fast as well, but the storm seems to have moved off to sea. 

Fledgling bluebird

The rain had stopped though everything was wet and the sky was gray.  Papa bluebird hit the seed feeder because the barkbutter was still covered.   Then his offspring showed up,  just as big as Dad but pretty clueless.  I imagined the fledgling thinking, "the world is so big and smells so good, after spending my whole life in a box."  But Papa still needed to feed the youngster.  

The cardinals were still courting.  A persistent brown headed nuthatch stuffed itself with seeds and threw rejects down for the squirrels.  I mostly got pictures of its rear end.  A Carolina wren worked on the diminishing suet.  Curiously, there haven't been any woodpeckers recently. The sky cleared at lunch and I spent some time outside. I saw a large dark butterfly, a small pale butterflu, a small brown skipper (I think), and the ubiquitous cabbage whites.  Dragonflies flew over, including one so big it had to have been a darner.  Polistes wasps roamed the vegetation.  Little red mites roamed on me.

The skink with the blue tail section crossed the patio.  Geese paddled downstream with goslings in tow.  I couldn't get a count through the screen of vegetation.  A dark object just below the water's surface was a turtle.  I'm afraid it was foiled by the goose excluder, though maybe it was following the geese in hopes of catching a gosling.  An egret flew downstream.  Clouds gathered as the afternoon went on and when it was fully dark we had a loud thunderstorm. 

Thunderstorm

The gray sky belied the high temperature, above 70°. A Carolina wren investigated the empty barkbutter dish and moved on to the suet.  It also foraged on the ground with the white throats. The cardinals smooched.  Bluebirds visited the seeds.  So did a brown headed nuthatch.  A mockingbird also had to be sure the barkbutter dish was really empty.  I saw the osprey again, or was it the young eagle?   There were pelicans for sure.  The cloud cover turned to rain which became heavy.  Then thunder and lightning followed as darkness came early.  

Stormy

Morning was gusty.  Three egrets fished along our stretch of the creek.  A brown headed nuthatch joined the regular seed eaters. So did a female red bellied woodpecker.  Stocking up before the storm?  Then the rain began before lunch.  The temperature was in the 60s but the weather spoiled any enjoyment of the warmth.  I heard thunder grumbling but saw no lightning flashes.  Late in the afternoon a very large flock of cormorants blew through and circled around to head back the way they'd come.  The storm left about a half inch of rain. 

Tropical depression

If the storm was tropical, why wasn't it warmer?  It was certainly depressing enough.  There was a flood watch on account of the conjunction of rain, wind, and moon.  The rain came in bands with interludes.  During one I saw titmice, chickadees, cardinals, and brown headed nuthatches at the seed feeder.  During another, I went out and cleaned the pool of leaves and needles.  I got drizzled on and chilled.  

Tropical Storm Debby

A monarch was back at the butterfly milkweed.  The monarch's tongue was grooved like a hummingbird's.  There were caterpillars too.  They stupidly ate a seedpod.  A slaty skimmer perched briefly.  A duskywing fed on the mountain mint but I didn't see any fiery skippers.  Bees and wasps annoyed the butterflies on the milkweed and mountain mint.  I saw a couple of dark butterflies, one of which was probably a black swallowtail while the other might have been a red spotted purple. 

It was a good thing I didn't delay swimming.  I evicted a frog and rescued a mama spider, another green tiger beetle, another fig beetle, and a ladybug beetle. We decided to have lunch outside since I was still dripping.  While we ate, clouds flowed up from the South.  Not too long after we finished the first rain band from tropical storm Debby passed over.  The monarch didn't stop feeding till after I dashed indoors.  The clouds spinning around the low pressure center covered Florida to New Jersey.