Cold front

Gray with drizzle and much cooler.  Cardinals are hungry.  A dove and a chickadee showed up.  Morning glories are blooming for all they're worth.  But the rain has them drooping. 

Some stretches of heavier rain and some periods with just wind, but altogether a raw day.  The wet grass feels colder to my bare feet than the pool water did two days ago.  Finches and titmice have also been visiting.  The white-spot squirrel came past with what looked like a ball of white wool in its mouth, which it was hunting a location to bury.  I wonder if it was a cocoon?  

There are some small black swallowtail caterpillars on the parsley which has bolted.  I wonder if they have time to make it to pupate?  A spider thread is holding aloft a morning glory vine.  Other arrowhead spiders are hanging out under the eaves making cobwebs.  The basilica webs are still in the azalea, but I don't see the spiders. 

Dusk crept up instead of blazing in as it has been for the last couple of days. 

Mystery bird

The morning glories are a mass of blooms.  The third quarter moon is high in the West, menaced by a spider in the window.  A squirrel dismantled a pecan in front of me as I ate breakfast.  Some finches came to the feeder.

I went off to a meeting at the YWCA on the Lafayette river and saw this bird hopping around in a groundsel bush.  Also a ladybug and a loaded honeybee.  Goldenrod is blooming now.

I've now been all over the web and through Peterson and I am not finding the bird.  Grrrr. It's the white patch under the eye that I cannot match. 

This is the bird that seems the best match, but it would be a long way from home!  A black-whiskered vireo has the thin black line down from the beak, the black line through the eye with white over and under it, and the hint of yellow around the base of the tail. 

Sunshine

Blue jays are coming for acorns.  Three doves foraged while chickadees and cardinals ate at the feeder. The plethora of nuts and berries is cutting into the popularity of the feeder.  I saw a red bellied woodpecker and a smaller one - downy or hairy - in the oak and I believe they were eating acorns.  Cardinals and mocking birds are eating dogwood and beauty berries.  I think there are migratory birds around too as I hear some unfamiliar calls.  A red spotted purple butterfly visited the cherry seedlings.

This may have been my last swim of the year.  It was cooler today than predicted and I'm pretty chilled.   I rescued innumerable black beetles and several spiders, one of which clung unexpectedly to my hand.  The pool had a lot of whole acorns as well as chewed shells.  And many rafting leaves.   

Still humid

At breakfast, the windows were too fogged to see anything.  Then it got beastly hot.  I missed most of the day, but was rewarded with sunset drama.  Cormorants, egrets, and kingfishers flew around in the twilight.  Lots of fish jumping too. 

Hot and gray

I saw the past-full moon when I got up, and later there was a short time of sun, but it is quite overcast now, and steamy.  The caterpillar is gone, whether about its business or down a gullet, I don't know.  On another cherry seedling I saw what I think is a used, empty chrysalis husk.  The weeping conk funguses look about the same as when I first noticed them.  Finches, chickadees, cardinals and a titmouse visited the feeder.  Cardinal fledglings poked through the mulch.  The chickadees quarreled. 

Sauna

The windows were fogged and the air felt sweaty.  I checked on the caterpillars and neither had moved.  The tiger swallowtail caterpillar twitched when touched.  At 5:30 am the moon was bright in the West, but clouds now dominate.

And as I finished the preceding words, a dark cloud rolled in and a downpour began.  It tapered off in less than 10 minutes. Ever since waves of rain have passed through. Chickadees are seizing a break in the weather to hit the feeder.

A female house finch ran off all the other birds and hunched like a tyrannosaurus on the perch.  Below it a Carolina wren probed the wet mulch.   Then another wave of rain came through. 

The past-full moon is playing peek-a-boo with the clouds.

Back to gray

A squirrel was out and about. The tiger swallowtail caterpillar was on the same leaf.  I wonder if it is preparing to moult?  I found another caterpillar, this time on the new red maple tree.  I cannot tell if the white is a parasite or part of the caterpillar, but it feels hard, not a good sign.

A drizzle started at lunch.  Titmice, chickadees, finches, cardinals, and doves joined us.  Then the computer fan broke right after I uploaded photos, so it may be a while before I attach a picture. 

A round moon peeked through the cloud cover on the way home.