Thunderstorm

A black swallowtail tempted me to take pictures I don't really want.  A molting hummer did the same. 

I saw a caterpillar on the butterfly weed, probably the one I moved there.  A duskywing visited the mint.  The great golden digger wasp came back to the mountain mint.  A blue dasher kept watch.   I caught a fiery skipper at an odd angle on the morning glory.  An amberwing perched in the grass making it hard to focus. 

An egret paused on the dock.  I found a good size limb fallen across the fence.  A skink ambled across the patio.  An osprey cruised in circles over the creek.   A hummer nervously fed while a house finch drank from the ant moat.   At least the storm waited till evening.

Gray sky

As I ate breakfast outside, I noticed a slug on a leaf that had come to the point and was figuring out how to turn back.   A hummer joined me for breakfast.  

The air seemed very damp and toward evening there were showers.  A frog was in the skimmer.  It leapt into the pool but eventually I caught it and told it to leave.  I don't mind swimming with frogs but the water seems to poison them. I rescued a green June beetle and a metallic green tiger beetle. 

And after I got out, I found a monarch caterpillar climbing a bamboo stake and persuaded it to relocate to the butterfly weed.  A green pondhawk perched on the feeder handle by my window.  

While I was on the phone in the afternoon,all sorts of things flew by.  I saw a cicada killer, butterflies, and dragonflies.  A flock of robins landed in the cherry tree.  A Carolina wren thoroughly inspected the redwood trunk.  Chicadees and cardinals hunted in the saltbush while house finches poked through the cherry. 

Skink skills

A blue mud wasp visited the mountain mint.  A buckeye came with the same goal.  A fiery skipper tried the daisies.  A male goldfinch drank from the nasty ant moat. 

I was sitting inside, digesting lunch, when I saw a disturbance in the water.  Thinking it might be a skink, I grabbed the pool brush as a rescue tool.  Well, there were three skinks, all blue tails, floating at the deep end.  The first I fished out ran to hide under my flipflop, with just a smidge of blue tail sticking out.  When I carefully lifted that foot, it dashed across the other foot and off into the shrubbery. 

The second skink when rescued ran back into the pool.  It refused to be netted by the brush and dived!  Then it swam under water.  Fine, I thought, I'll rescue number three.  That one was no trouble and quickly ran under the azalea.  I had another go at the escape artist and snagged its tail.  When I deposited it on the ground, it ran to the red cedar and climbed the trunk till it could hide behind a branch.  I checked the skimmer and, sure enough, there was a fourth little skink sitting on the handle. Since it seemed safe, I left it there.

It was gone when I came back, but I found a swimming skink that seemed the same size, so I'm guessing it was able to swim out of the skimmer.  I found a large dead cicada in the water.  I also fished out a scary mess of legs that I thought was some kind of spider, but the photo looks more like the remains of a leaf footed true bug.  I had counted the antenna as legs.  And I rescued a green eyed bee that was alive, but then stopped moving.  I thought it died, but when the ants came for it, the bee rose up and took flight, and promptly fell in the water again.  I rescued it again and this time took pictures. 

A Carolina wren hunted in the grass.  The neighbor's crape myrtle shed flowers on the wind that landed in the pool like pink confetti.  A tattered skimmer used one of the perches.  An amberwing perched on an azalea twig and glowed in the evening light.  A red spotted purple investigated the cherry that grew from a pit I tossed out.  A Carolina saddlebags used the dead twig atop the oak.  A squirrel ate green dogwood berries.  The tailless brown thrasher camped out under the shrubbery. 

I stayed up to watch for Perseid meteors and  I believe I saw a couple. It was the only opportunity because a storm was coming. I couldn't photograph meteors, but I did get the moon. 

Pleasant

There were more butterflies than dragonflies. 

A blue jay scolded me while I swam.  The frog was sitting on the pool ladder again.  A blue tailed skink floated belly up, alas. 

Humidity

While looking at the weather for tomorrow, I noticed that it is predicted to be less humid.  I got curious about humidity and dew point: According to the National Weather Service, "The dew point is the temperature the air needs to be cooled to (at constant pressure) in order to achieve a relative humidity (RH) of 100%."  But it didn't explain how to calculate less than 100% or why "a temperature of 80 and a dew point of 60 produces a relative humidity of 50%."  Wikipedia did explain, and the math was beyond my pay grade.   

I saw a female common whitetail but it saw me and took off.  

Running around

There were butterflies as I ate lunch - a tattered buckeye and a silver spotted skipper.  A sizable bumblebee visited the mint.  The great golden digger wasp was back.  A house wren perched on a rose cane. 

When we got back in the late afternoon, the clouds looked ferocious. They just blowing East for a couple of hours, but finally there was a rain shower. 

A frog decided the pool thermometer would serve as a lily pad.  A Carolina saddlebags patrolled the airspace over  the pool and two four spotted pennants perched high in the oak. 

A Carolina wren carried away bites of the bark butter.  Chickadees and cardinals came to the feeder even though we were sitting close.  But the titmouse was afraid and frustrated at not getting any supper so it just scolded. 

The moon was briefly visible above the clouds.  I believe I heard a kingfisher. A loud single-note whistle made me look for a great crested flycatcher or maybe the towhee that visited yesterday, but I didn't see any of them. 

Drying out

There was a disturbance in the cherry tree that resolved itself into a flock of robins, many still speckled.  Baldy, the boss cardinal hung around much of the day.  I poured the rainwater off the bark butter and the Carolina wren was happy. 

Rainwater raised the pool level past the skimmer opening.  I rescued a metallic green tiger beetle and a few wasps. The tattered hairstreak made it through the storm and was joined on the mountain mint by another in better shape.  A duskywing tried to join them but didn't have their tolerance for wasps.   A red spotted purple flitted around the cherry.  A black swallowtail kept returning to the rue but a palamedes swallowtail defeated my photography. 

Blue dashers were at their stations.  I glimpsed a saddlebags that didn't come back.  A big dragonfly, maybe a darner, banged into the window during lunch.  A slaty skimmer clung to a dead saltbush twig by the creek.  Other insects zipped past and one failed to bully the resident dragonfly off its perch. 

A downy woodpecker hiked up the oak.  I think the  hummer juice got diluted because they weren't into it.  A lovely male goldfinch took an interest in the parsley seeds and dogwood berries.  The tailless brown thrasher prowled along the azalea bushes.  Titmice came for sunflower seeds. 

Geese were pleased with the denuded dam.  A chickfila container floated downstream. One turtle basked on a lake log.  A juvenile night heron stood on the dock peering into the water which was quite high though the moon wasn't even up.  When it did rise, the craters were clear and sharp.