Another storm

Somehow I managed to erase all the pictures on my main camera.  At breakfast I saw titmice.  I rescued a frog, a mama wolf spider, and a big green June beetle. A ladybug, alas, was beyond help.  A hummer landed directly over me and I was looking forward to those shots. Blue jays set up a racket in the oak.  I saw a brownish butterfly and a very tattered female black swallowtail.  A female widow skimmer used the perch for a while and a saddlebags ruled the upper airspace.  The argiope was still in its web. 

Fortunately, I had the little snapshot camera along in the car during the storms yesterday and today.  A scary wall of darkness pushed up from the South as I drove West. Thunder and lightning ran ahead of it.  The rain finally arrived as I headed home. 

Thunderstorm

I squeezed in some pool time after lunch and disposed of a drowned skink and a dead cicada.  Some butterflies flitted around but I left the camera inside.  The sun was scorching at first, but clouds moved in.  A saddlebags zipped around the treetops. 

Later on my way to a meeting I saw lightning flashes. As I hiked from my car to the building, the rain began and by the time I reached the door it was falling sideways and I was soaked despite an umbrella.  On the way home three hours later, I took pictures of the retreating clouds. 

And this was supposed to be all day sunshine.

Another hot one

The only thing I saw at breakfast was a hummer.  But I did get going and into the pool in the morning.  There were two live frogs and one corpse today.  I tossed all three down the hill. But I rescued a wolf spider and her babies.  The Argiope was still between the rue and the hibiscus.  And there were interesting webs on the parsley with a caterpillar in the middle. 

I glimpsed several skinks but they all got away.  A duskywing landed on a wilted morning glory.  I also saw a monarch, a black swallowtail and a palamedes swallowtail, a clouded sulphur, a snout, and a red spotted purple.  A tiny, delicate damselfly landed between me and the camera.  I saw a couple of dragonflies on the wing.  But the only decent photo out of all this was a grasshopper on the downspout. 

Foolish frog

The morning disappeared into various projects.  I just had time to notice dogwood leaves blushing with the onset of shorter days.  At lunch time, dueling monarchs danced above the milkweed.  One seemed more interested in laying eggs and the other in getting a meal.  A fritillary stayed away from the milkweed.  I glimpsed a red spotted purple but it did not hang around. 

A succession of hummers came for refueling. A flock of birds flew over but the camera didn't want to focus.  I wondered if they were tree swallows.  A couple of blue jays came for bark butter balls.  One begged the other so I guess it was a fledgling. 

The absence of Argiope spiders had begun to concern me, but I stuck my hand right into a web while reaching for a stalk of money plant seeds pods.  The spider didn't look full size but it had picked a good spot to catch its meals.  A female common whitetail buzzed around the patio. The perch was occupied by a bar winged skimmer. 

I got the silly green frog out of the pool but when I walked away it jumped back in.  No doubt tomorrow I'll have to dispose of its corpse.  Yuck.  I also rescued a mama wolf spider, a click beetle, a tiny green caterpillar, and a buffalo leafhopper (or treehopper). A long-bodied cellar spider was handing out on the top step just above the water.  I left it alone since it seemed to be satisfied with its location.  

Heavy clouds blocked the sun in the afternoon and then dissipated before evening.  I sat outside to listen to the varied cicadas and saw a few fireflies.  Two egrets flew over and I missed both. 

Around 11pm, something banged on the window a couple of times.  I went out to see what it was and found a cicada.  I tried to persuade it onto my finger but it threw a loud hissy fit and disappeared.  So I cannot say which kind it was, but it seemed small.  The past-full moon had not yet cleared the trees.

Hot, humid, and windless

The male goldfinch was back.  Clouds put on quite a show of sun beams.  Dogwood berries had turned red but the acorns were still green. But despite the conditions, I didn't see much. 

I evicted a frog and a spider from the skimmer.  Sadly, there was a battered butterfly in the water.  I could not tell whether it had been a black swallowtail or a red spotted purple.  Another dark butterfly flitted over the water.  A blue dasher was stationed on the perch. 

A small flock of geese were stationary on the still water, as though waiting for something.  Then the blue jays started screaming and crows flew in to help.  I've no idea what the ruckus was about.  I did wonder if the jays were faking.  They were feasting on acorns, dropping shrapnel on the ground for unwary feet.

Later, a blue jay in the midst of a bad molt grabbed some bark butter balls while I sat about six feet away.  I didn't attempt a picture, in the hope that it would return.  The male goldfinch also decided to visit despite my presence, though I was a bit farther from the ant moat.  A hummer appeared within minutes after I hung a fresh feeder. 

Pleasant

A tiger swallowtail laid eggs all over the cherry   The tattered hibiscus managed a flower.  So did the canna. A couple of hummers had a glaring contest.  A squirrel nibbled green acorns.

While I was in the pool I observed something very odd.  An earthworm, I believe, came across the concrete toward the water, its front end raised somewhat like a snake.  I splashed it to stop it from coming over the edge because I wasn't sure whether it would float.  In fact, I wasn't entirely sure it wasn't a tiny snake.  The splash scared it and it hustled away. The last I saw of it was as it crossed the stones into the grass. There was no time to get the camera, alas.

Scary cloud

The big, dark cloud sat over central VB for hours, looking like it was about to spawn tornadoes and dump buckets of water, but nothing happened.  I got a few sprinkles on the windshield, no more.

Before I left, I did see some interesting chickadee behavior - the bird was very interested in the wrens' abandoned birdhouse. Titmice came to breakfast but they were too fast for me.  The male goldfinch didn't flee the camera today.  Neither did a blue jay.

I cleaned the pool in the late afternoon and saved one skink and disposed of another.  Also one spider, but no frogs, alive or dead.  A couple of little red insects behaved like scorpions -- they both curled their red abdomens up when rescued.  Fortunately I was cautious and did not touch them because they turned out to be rove beetles. Apparently they were used in ancient biochemical warfare.

A female widow skimmer was using the perch.  One hummer was at the feeder when another alighted.  I don't know what the first one said, but the interloper skedaddled.