Chilly

I thought I'd have another pool day but in the afternoon the sun vanished and the breeze became an East wind and the temperature went into a decline.  Bluebirds visited but all I got was a blurred tail.  The male pileated was more cooperative.  The two mockingbirds continued to squabble over food.  

I found several more caterpillars on the rue.  A couple were first instars and one was a second.  Sycamore seeds blew everywhere and made drifts on the patio and clogged the pool and photobombed my picture of a caterpillar.  

 

Squirrel's bad day

The wind was much cooler and waves muddied the creek surface.  A mockingbird wanted a refill on the barkbutter balls.  So did a blue jay.  A few turtles enjoyed the sunshine. The pileated woodpeckers got their share of the suet though the pesky starlings ate more. A tiger swallowtail flew across the yard.  A female bluebird worked on the dregs of the barkbutter balls.  The sycamore and the pecan leafed out and I saw flowers on the wild cherry.  . 

I noticed a courtship pursuit where the female squirrel stays just a couple of feet ahead of the male as he chases in slow motion.  A crow noticed too and began to harass the male squirrel, swooping down on him like a hawk but not actually touching the squirrel.  That broke up the courtship chase real fast.  The female abandoned her erstwhile pursuer.  Another crow watched so maybe the bully wanted to impress the other one?  Finally the crows had had enough fun and left.  The squirrels eventually reunited but then the dog demanded to go out and make them leave his territory.  I was glad to see him take an interest.  He chased the squirrels and treed them, but then one jumped down and dashed across the pool cover and the water from last night's storm.  The dog followed - the first time I've seen him set foot on the pool cover.  In the end, the squirrels took their courtship elsewhere and the dog was satisfied.  

Record high!

Somehow yesterday got away from me.   Low tide at breakfast was glass smooth.  Later, the wind ruffled the surface.  The female red belly enjoyed fresh seeds.  Both pileateds visited the suet.  A white throat looked for crumbs of suet.  A mockingbird wondered why the dish feeders were empty.  Cardinals were billing and chirping.  Sunset painted tangerine clouds on a lavender sky.  I looked for the moon but couldn't find it.

The creek was not in a reflective mood at Monday breakfast.   I filled the dishes with barkbutter balls and soon there were blue jays.  The female downy seemed to have acquired a taste for seeds.  A white breasted nuthatch was next, then the red belly.  Cabbage whites flitted around the plants.  Even the sycamore and the beautyberry were leafing out.  I planted parsley and zinnia seeds in anticipation of evening rain.  Blue eyed grass and coral lilies started to bloom.  The thermometer registered 90° which beat the previous record by 2°!   Thank goodness I got "no melt" suet.  When we ate supper outside, the temperature had dropped to 85° and there was a nice breeze.  But an hour of so later, the predicted storm was on its way and the temperature went down to 62° overnight.  

Mockingbird

The creek glowed with reflected sunshine.  An early starling took over the barkbutter crumbs which left a mockingbird feeling sad.  But eventually the rude starling left and the mockingbird got a turn.  

Then a blue jay  wanted a share.  Its chest was wet from something, dew maybe?  Like the starling, the jay pitched as much food out as it gobbled.  A female bluebird was next, followed by a male.   Sunlight and shadows painted streaks across the azaleas.  Soon the mockingbird was back.  In fact, it seemed like every time I passed the window, the mocker was feasting.  Later, I saw one in the front yard, maybe the same?  

The fresh new oak leaves shimmered in the breeze against the deep blue sky.  Some branches were behind schedule with leaves that were tinted with red.  Sycamore leaves seemed very spiky and last years seed balls were intermixed with small, new, reddish balls.  The wild cherry put out flower bud spikes.  The new maple leaves were gold as in Frost's poem.  Solomon's seal looked like a sculpture in the late afternoon light. 

The yellow rose was fully open and as big as a peony.  A tiny jumping spider waited on a petal.  I saw the same or another reddish bee on the money plant.  A mason wasp got water from the birdbath.  Bluebirds came back almost as frequently as the mockingbird.  The turtles basking on logs were bigger than the mallard alongside.  Two osprey circles over the creek but I missed them.  

Cloudy

The South wind kept the day warm in spite of the clouds it brought.  A house wren scampered through the vegetation bordering the patio.  I caught its tail in one photo and head in another.  

The new native coral honeysuckle flowers opened.  So did the maroon daylilies.  The fancy ruffled daylilies continued to bloom but the yellow and orange daylilies were about done.  The neighbor's sycamore seeds blew into our yard and mostly into the water.  If a dandelion were a tree, it would be a sycamore. 

Two Scarites ground beetles needed repeated rescuing.  Maybe I should have left them to their watery fate?  Leatherwing beetles moseyed across the parsley flowers, looking for love and lunch.  An all-black bee feasted on the butterfly milkweed until a tiny sweat bee harassed it.  I spotted a firefly on a mountain mint leaf.  Probably Photinus pyralis.  

Windy

Egrets competed for prime fishing spots.  Blue jays were less cautious than usual.  The male cardinal was missing feathers from his forehead.  I spotted one white throated sparrow. I hoped the South wind would blow us some migrating birds, but I didn't see any.  It certainly brought plenty of heat.

I saw flower buds on the rue.  The Solomon's seal shot out of the ground about eight inches - there was nothing there on Tuesday.  The azaleas rushed to open but the wind stripped off the cherry blossoms.  I wonder if they were fertilized first.  Dogwood flowers held on tighter and the one with peculiar buds still had a few not fully open.  One hickory leafed out but the other was just beginning to open its buds.  Sycamore balls and pollen-shedding oak tassels were blown sideways.

A skink scuttled out from under the pool cover and into the shrubbery.  I saw a black swallowtail flitting around the rue and I think a tiger swallowtail further off.  But the wind might have fooled me with a leaf.  Yellow kneed wasps struggled to fly, and were disappointed by the new bench seat of treated wood.  Queen yellow jackets scouted possible residences.  I found a bird skull in the mulch under the dogwood.  My best guess is a crow.  Even between the clouds flying North, the moon was hard to see through the haze.

White sky

The sun was mostly visible, but neither bright nor hot.  Sometimes the clouds had texture and sometimes the sky was just white.    The air was comfortably room temperature but then a gust of wind would make me chilly.  It also seemed to discourage insects.  The sycamore next door decided this was the day to release its seeds.  They were held in tight balls all year until now when this Spring's fertilized flowers formed new seed balls.  I wasted pixels trying to capture a floating seed. 

Skinks scuttled around and soaked up sunshine in sheltered spots.  There may have been a tussle between males under the leaves.  A squirrel gnawed something up in the oak, maybe a gall? Another squirrel had some difficulty shimmying up the wire to the mealworms, which gave me an idea.  So I wiped the wire with oil. 

 A female hummer was happy with fresh juice and not about to share with a male.  Earlier when I was watering, the male zipped through the spray.

I hung a new birdhouse that was labeled as a decoration, not real.  But wrens are famous for nesting in other decorations that look even less suitable.  So we'll see.  Of course it would be a second nest as most birds' eggs have already hatched.  Certainly the bluebirds were busy bringing food to their nest box.  

I glimpsed ospreys and egrets.   A wren sang loudly, repeatedly, from close by, but I never caught sight of it.  Geese stayed out of the yard for once. Three swallows zipped across the sky, chattering.  I got one fuzzy image.  The light faded early into a long twilight.