Waiting for the storm

Clouds streamed off the ocean, cooling the temperature.  A brown thrasher was very busy hunting a meal. A couple of green (female) pondhawks maintained social distance as they waited for prey.  Once they went for the same bug.   A small sulphur butterflybe flitted past me and over the house.  A small all-black bee worked on the mountain mint.  A robber fly lurked on the hibiscus.  I rescued a sidewalk tiger beetle and a leaf-footed bug nymph. 

Not so hot

Titmice were hungry for breakfast.  So was a hummer.  Then the blue jays came. 

A gloriously golden Needham's skimmer was perched on a bamboo stake at lunch time.  The twig atop the hackberry was unoccupied.  In the afternoon there were blue dashers everywhere.  A great golden digger wasp, a  carpenter bee, and a little leaf cutter bee worked on the mountain mint. 

I picked blueberries till the sweat ran.  This annoyed the birds.  What annoyed me was all the berries with just one peck.  I don't begrudge the birds eating whole berries, but why ruin so many?  A male bluebird visited the bark butter balls. 

The setting sun blushed the clouds and made a lovely reflection in the creek. 

Bird cherries

A female goldfinch visited briefly.   Blue jays played a game of trying to get bark butter balls without getting photographed.  This time I won, mostly.   A female bluebird had to wait for the blue jays to finish.  Brown thrashers competed with the blue jays but were too awkward on the feeder to get much.  They spent more time with the cherries. 

I didn't know that American wild black cherries belonged to the Padus sub-genus of Prunus called bird cherries.  Apparently the birds knew. The mint has begun to bloom so maybe I will see some hairstreaks.  A great golden digger wasp fussed over the mountain mint.  A Carolina saddlebags perched on the dead hackberry twig.  Blue dashers operated from the bamboo stakes I put out for them.  So did a female widow skimmer.  A common whitetail preferred the new mulch. 

The coral honeysuckle was still flowering, though not in the profusion of Spring.  I wonder if the hummingbirds visit it?  The flowers on the beautyberry seemed bigger this year.  A cardinal took a sunbath, maybe an ant treatment, in the domestic cherry, Prunus avium, sub-genus Cerasus, that grew from a random spit pit. 

I went down to the dock to see the yard from a different perspective.  A mockingbird was at work in the cherry closest to the water.  Virginia creeper was running rampant all over the cherry tree but I don't think its berries were ripe.  The cardinal, or another, popped up in that tree too.   

A dragonfly with spotted wings cruised low over the creek, paralleling the shore.  I saw lots of mud crab holes and a couple of dead crabs, but none living.  I did see wasps gathering mud and possibly digging holes.  Back at the pool I rescued a metallic-green bee.  A green grasshopper nymph climbed the chair I was sitting in but I could not find the right focal length. 

Mulch arrived

A male goldfinch made a brief appearance.   A brown thrasher tried to get a bark butter ball, rudely shoving a bluebird away.  Later I saw a Carolina wren grab one.  A chickadee, however. needed to peck off pieces first. 

A skink climbed the bricks behind the grill.  Dragonflies were energized by the heat. 

Lote of birds

The ripe wild cherries attracted mockingbirds that normally avoid the backyard. The beautyberry began blooming. 

Time slipped by

I took pictures but I didn't make time to look at them till now.

July 2: A black swallowtail found the parsley despite the dragon(fly) guarding it.  Mallards had their vacay on the dock.  The sakaki bloomed and hummed with bees and rained spent flowers.  Gladiolus sent up more spears to replace the flowers broken by the rain.  Some wild cherries were ripe.  I think I saw a brown thrasher feeding on them.  The male bluebird posed in the late afternoon sunlight.  I did not get a picture of the two little green herons along the shoreline that K flushed. 

July 3: I went out a little after midnight to look at the night sky.  Jupiter trailed the moon.  At lunch, I saw a blue jay preening.The butterfly milkweed started blooming.  No sign of a bud on any of the other milkweeds.  Papa bluebird was hanging around again.  I rescued what I thought were a couple of assassin bug nymphs but was to late for several more, also for two skinklets.  Matching photos suggests the bugs were leaf-footed bugs, Acanthocephala terminalis.  To me they look like qheuens, an alien species in David Brin's Uplift series.  I also saved a firefly.  A squirrel got into the wild cherries and I found a patch of eggs on a cherry leaf.   

July 4: Another hot, sunny day brought out a few butterflies.  I saw a tiger swallowtail, a cabbage white, and a red admiral.  Blue jays came for bark butter balls.  The orange double daylilies joined the daisies.  While in the pool, I noticed an orange bluet damselfly on the concrete.  A blue jay left a small, bright feather. Illegal fireworks reigned from dusk to about 10:30pm.  I did see the rising moon and Jupiter.  

Deluge!

Around 5pm, rain fell much too fast for the ditches and culverts to handle.  Pembroke Boulevard flooded.