Cooler

More running around, but I finally got outside around 3pm.  The day was perfect for being outside but a bit cooler than optimal for swimming.  The Argiope had a fresh web in the same spot.  I startled it and it hid on a spent rose.  The cobweb spider's progeny had little threads over everything.  I found a sizable caterpillar on the rue.  The milkweed bug nymphs were bigger and the adults were flying around.  I saw a couple of very small butterflies, one yellow-brown and the other white or pale blue.  The only dragonfly I saw was in Norfolk.

While in the water I rescued a wasp, a beetle, a very small caterpillar, and then I saw something large swimming.  Moth or horsefly crossed my mind but when I fished it out and it refolded its wings I realized it was a huge leaf footed bug.  I got out to photograph it in case it left as quickly as the wasp.  The breeze felt chilly and I never went back in. 

Home

Afternoon clouds were pretty.  But I got tired of taking their picture while sitting stuck in traffic.  By the time I got in, there was too little light to take anything that wasn't in the sun. I checked on the Argiope and the milkweed bugs and saw an egret at the dam.  

Rain

On my way to the colonial capital, I saw a butterfly.  Blackback gulls hung around the HRBT.  A cell tower near Victory Blvd held an ominous collection of buzzards.  The rain fell most heavily on the road work, sending steam clouds up from the hot asphalt.

Hot sun

The tide was still running high this morning.   The fungus grew quite a bit.  I fished a dead caterpillar, a drowned cicada, and several black ground beetles from the pool. 

A black swallowtail egged the rue.  I saw two dragonflies, one I think was a blue dasher zipped around the hibiscus and the other darted out from the top of the cherry.  All I glimpsed of that one was brown wings.

Goldenrod was blooming.  A skink eluded me.  I wondered if the milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) were taking care of their nymphs, but research said no.  They stayed close and one even covered the nymphs with its body.  The nymphs had molted and left shed exoskeletons littering the pods. Some of the milkweed bugs are quite red while others are a faded orange.  Sex?  Age? 

A jumping spider lurked near the nymphs that were about the same size.  I also saw a brown stink bug on the steps.  The Argiope seemed well. 

Rushing around

I spent much of the day at voter registration drives.  After getting rain soaked and sun broiled, my reward was to see a hawk sail over, lazily pursued by crows.There was a lot of cloud drama.  The moon rose haloed with mist and with Mars as an outrider.

Harvest Moon

Gray skies & spiders and no time for more, alas. I rushed around all day.  The cobweb spider in the window was a mother for the third time.  The Argiope's web looked quite snarled but she had lunch all wrapped up.

A wall of rain seemed to stretch from Town Center to the James River. I went through it headed South to Chesapeake and again as the road curved around to Northern Suffolk where it was absolutely torrential.  But it quit toward evening leaving breaks in the clouds.  On the way home, the full Harvest Moon melted through the broken overcast. 

Rain?

Everything dripped at breakfast and the windows were fogged.  K asserted it was dew but it looked to me like overnight rain followed by high humidity. I checked on the Argiope and thought it looked thinner, but I couldn't see any egg case.  The caterpillars on the rue ignore it. 

After lunch I was determined to swim even though rain was sprinkling.  And I was right because the sprinkles went away almost immediately.  Milkweed bug nymphs had hatched.  Wasps were still at work.  I watched a crow hammer an acorn.  The afternoon was shattered by the noise of the air show miles away until finally four jets buzzed the house.  I saw a lacewing in flight, a magical flutter of green gauze.  Later a grasshopper startled me and got away before I could even be sure what kind it was.

K got potting soil for the hanging plants on the front patio so I thought I'd better make a start.  I worked on the fuschia and discovered it was waterlogged.  I hope I didn't kill it.  At any rate, I finished after 5pm, filthy and sweaty and still in my wet swim suit.  By the time I got that rinsed and me washed, there had been a rain shower.  It could not have been more than 15 minutes.  I was hoping for something that would let me off the hook for watering.

This article was in the newspaper. "The un-scientific experiment is called the windshield test. Wilson recommends everyday people do it themselves to see. Baby Boomers will probably notice the difference, Tallamy said."  I can corroborate that - I was noticing how much less common bug splats were on long drives, despite my Cube's flatter windshield.