Into the water

Bluebirds got an early start.  The daylilies continued blooming along with the butterfly milkweed.  A blue dasher dragonfly perched on the rose bush to hunt.  I restocked the dishes and that attracted blue jays. I also hung a fresh hummer feeder but it had no visitors.  A squirrel leaped between trees.  The brown headed nuthatches got hungry at lunch time.  

A crow inspected the patio.  It kept its beak open, but I don't know whether it was panting or some other reason.  There was a commotion in the wild cherry and I found purple poop on the patio furniture, but all the cherries I could see were green.  Nor could I tell what was making the disturbance.  At last, the day got warm enough to get into the pool.  The water was brisk but endurable.  All I saw was two spiders, one the walks-on water kind, the other a crab spider of some sort.  

Still chilly

The day looked lovely but the breeze was chilly.  A female bluebird was torn between seeds and mealworms but the male knew what he wanted. Brown headed nuthatches tidied the seed feeder of anything they didn't want.  That made the squirrels happy.  A nuthatch considered the mealworms, but decided against them.  A Carolina wren worked on the suet and flew down to get a dropped crumb.  Chickadees also spent more time with the suet than the seeds. 

A snout butterfly flew in and out of the sakaki but it was very hard to see edge-on.  A very red faced skink cautiously approached me on its way to the shrubbery.  A big oak limb was deeply excavated by woodpeckers.  The tree tried to heal the area but I suspect it will break there one day.    A reddish ant lugged a bit of mealworm some bird dropped.  A stink bug occupied the railing which was an odd location.  A mosquito followed me indoors and I took revenge for the welt on my back. 

Goldfinch

Thin cloud cover muted the sunlight.  The weather was fairly quiet after yesterday's drama.  A male goldfinch inspected the menu, then moved on.  A less discriminating female bluebird helped herself to seeds.  A brown headed nuthatch waited impatiently on a female cardinal and even tried to sneak across the bottom of the feeder.  

The fledgling bluebird, if it was the same as yesterday, solved the feeder mystery and busily stuffed its crop.  What a difference a day made!  Still, the youngster spent a lot of time looking around for a parent.  Chickadees congregated on the suet.  A crow made a brief visit.  Late in the day, a Carolina wren wanted seeds.  A commotion in the wild cherry revealed two great crested flycatchers.  A red bellied woodpecker came and went in a blink. 

I spotted one great blue skimmer dragonfly but no butterflies.  The coral honeysuckle still had flowers which could feed any passing hummer.  A reddish wasp hunted in the cinquefoil and a greenbottle fly rested on a gladiolus leaf.  A little brown moth awaited night on my window.  

Hail!

At breakfast, a fledgling bluebird roosted on the seed feeder perch with its back to the food.  Clueless!  When it finally left, a brown headed nuthatch took over.  Then an adult male bluebird arrived.  The fancy ruffled daylily put out a flower and the orange daylily was still blooming.  I left for a meeting followed by a picnic.  We had sunshine, low 80s, and a stiff breeze which I think kept the mosquitoes away.  In fact, I didn't see any insects except for the ubiquitous cabbage white.  

Cumulus clouds boiled up across the sky after mid day.  A male cardinal was on the feeder when I got home, seeming anxious.  And no wonder because another male showed up and kicked the first one off.  It appeared to me that the dominant male was beginning to go bald.  A brown headed nuthatch waited for a turn.  Then a female bluebird wanted to know why the dish feeders were still empty.  I referred her to the National Weather Service. 

Fortunately the bad weather held off till late afternoon.  But the storm at supper was very impressive.  It came in waves with peanut-size hail.  I thought it was clearing at sunset but another wave came through growling with thunder.  The temperature dropped fast as well, but the storm seems to have moved off to sea. 

Morning rain

I could see a brown headed nuthatch and a bluebird but all the camera could see was rain.  A cardinal went a-courting but the female made it very clear she was not in the mood.  Around 9:30am, we began to have moments of sunshine and the day warmed more than the last several.  By lunch, heavy clouds floated across the blue sky.  The creek was flat and shiny.  A monarch and a skipper feasted on butterfly milkweed.  I finally found a spear of buds on the gladiolus.  

Blue dasher dragonflies perched on rose twigs and wasps hunted through vegetation.  Clouds thickened in the afternoon and the wind grew stronger.  The nuthatch and bluebirds returned.  A red bellied woodpecker found the suet.  The NWS issued a tornado watch for the evening but it didn't even rain.  

Humid

Bluebirds were really hungry after two days of rain.  A Carolina wren dug into the suet along with chickadees.  A great blue skimmer perched for the camera while a cabbage white just kept flitting.  I saw a great egret flying upstream but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.  And there was no rain though the air was damp and the sun struggled to penetrate the cloud cover.  

More Rain

A couple of deluges interspersed with light rain filled all the containers outside.  A Carolina wren ate suet in between the downpours, as did chickadees.  I learned that this page on iNaturalist lists local species by frequency of reporting.