Very hot

Morning brought goldfinches and hummers.   The one Argiope made it through the rain.  I caught a blur of the coy tiger swallowtail.  A gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus, enjoyed the mountain mint.  And a monarch visited the butterfly milkweed. 

The sun was fierce so I swam in the morning while there was still shade.  Among my rescues were two small brown click beetles.  I also fished out a mama spider covered with spiderlings.  An anglewing katydid was too far gone. 

A skink climbed the wall.  A widow skimmer used a bamboo stake as a perch.  A different species perched atop a twig on the wild cherry.  Another, maybe a blue dasher, landed on the metal cap on the post which must have been hot.  And a slaty skimmer clung to another stake.  I got some pictures of the small gray leafcutter bee and took too many of the great golden digger wasp.  An odd orange fly turned up. 

The brown thrashers put in an appearance mid day but kept screened by vegetation.  The rain turned the blueberries to mush.  I've never seen that happen before.

More rain

From Thursday through today, five inches of rain fell. The goldfinches were up early for seeds.  They only avoided the very heaviest rain.  Even though K hung a fresh feeder, the hummer wasn't happy.  It must have gotten diluted.  The rain stopped in the afternoon and we had late afternoon sunshine. It was very humid.  I could not find any spiders but a dragonfly appeared.  I believe it was either a slaty or a bar-winged skimmer.  The wasps were soon busy again. 

Dark daytime

I measured the rainwater in a bucket at two inches for yesterday and overnight.   The rain paused in the morning and there was even some blue sky.  The goldfinch pair wanted their breakfast.  I found one Argiope spider but not the other two.  Plants revived and I straightened some bamboo stakes. I propped up the sunflower that fell over days ago and soon the female goldfinch started pecking at its seeds.  I doubt they were ripe yet.  The male kept watch.  

The mountain mint was covered with hungry insects including a Macrosiagon dimidiata beetle.  I also saw great golden digger wasps, scoliid wasps,  sand wasps, leafcutter bees, bumblebees carpenter bees, and honeybees.  In the pool, I rescued a mama spider with a big egg pearl and many brown May beetles.  A rain shower drove me inside but the heavy rain waited till afternoon.  It got very dark indoors and I heard thunder.  

Rain at last

A hummer zoomed in early and got well fed before the storm.   The rain began before 10am but didn't get heavy till afternoon.  The goldfinches visited while the rain was still light.  Then it got very dark and thunderous.  The temperature dropped down into the 70s and the humidity climbed into the 90s.  At suppertime the goldfinch pair visited the seed feeder again.  

Monarch

When I went out for a late morning swim, a duskywing skipper was enjoying the mountain mint, but not the pesky wasps.  Threatening clouds were a false alarm.  I checked on the Argiope spiders.  One web was still a mess, another was rebuilt but unoccupied, and the one among the dead rue stalks had a spider.  Dragonflies were perched and ready.  At lunch, the monarch butterfly seemed very excited by the butterfly milkweed.  I think it was a female because it paid attention to the leaves as well as the flowers.  

Buggy

A brown headed nuthatch greeted us at breakfast.  Then I was busy till late afternoon when it was very hot and critters kept flying at my face since the rest of me was submerged.  I rescued a few beetles and gave up.  A duskywing joined the bees and wasps on the mountain mint. 

As I dripped off behind a screen of wasps and dragonflies, I saw a green heron preening on a dock post.  An osprey dived on the creek but there was too much vegetation for me to know whether the bird caught anything.  I also saw a hummer seeking nectar from a hibiscus. 

Most of the perches were occupied by dragonflies, slaty skimmer, widow skimmer, maybe other species.  Bees dominated the mountain mint but there were some wasps.  Two silver slashes on the thorax indicated one was Ammophila procera.  I checked on the Argiope spiders and found the one in the rue.  Of the other two, one clung to a ruined web and the other web seemed empty.  

Overcast

The goldfinches wanted an early breakfast, or maybe they just wanted to eat in peace.   A half dozen hibiscus flowers brightened the day.  Hummers found their feeder.  I located three baby Argiope spiders today, two of them only inches apart.  They were looking more like adults than last week even though they didn't seem bigger.  The female downy pecked crumbs from the barkbutter dish because I didn't want to put out more while rain was predicted. 

With only a light breeze, the air was stifling even without the sun.  As I headed down the steps I saw a duskywing in the mountain mint.  On my way back, I surprised a skink.  While swimming, I rescued another mama wolf spider with babies and a robber fly with white on the abdomen.I don't know if I rescued the same one twice or if there were two.  The same dragonfly hung out on the perch by my window all day and was still there until it got too dark to see.   I'm pretty sure it was a female bar-winged skimmer. 

A couple of swallowtails danced together and at least one looked like a palamedes.  A hummer that appeared at the same time was about the same size.  I glimpsed what I took to be a jellyfish bobbing in the creek.  A different dragonfly with a dusty blue abdomen perched on a taller bamboo stake.  The brown headed nuthatch returned at supper time.  I have seen no goslings or ducklings this year.  The goose excluder certainly worked!  But not even out on the creek have I seen the usual little convoys.  The rain never arrived.  Firefly season seemed to be over, unless the drought cut it short.