AstroGypsies

She has learned to come earlier and earlier as I put everything away for the night, don’t want any bear reruns! She was holding it like Gollum and his ring…”My preccciooosssss!” and she hissed at me as she licked it clean…MINE! OK, OK…you finish that up, Orioles don’t want any raccoon spit in their jam I’m sure!

She hung around a bit after climbing out of the tree and sat and stared at me…

..and licked the jam off her paws, before she sauntered off into the forest…Our little forest world:) At least the Dollar store has strawberry jam and marmalade back in stock as she is cleaning me out! The hummingbirds are much cheaper to feed!

I have caught a glimpse of a single female Ruby Throated but it has been pretty quiet. Hopefully she will be successful nesting. It seems quiet, too quiet. The dragonflies are making up for it though! Talk about being a buzz! Don’t ask me why they are all facing the same way..0_0…Ha! Love the green and blue guys!

There was a hatch of the Blue Dashers down at the lakeside, dozens of them flying about, very small, only 2″ long and I found all these cast-off nymph skins on the sumacs blooms and the canoe paddles had several as well. At first I thought they were cicada skins! So cool. I only had the short lens and sat as they hovered, trying to catch one in flight, not thinking I’d be very successful. I finally trotted, well, walked back up the stairs and came back with the long lens and they had suddenly all quieted down, the heat maybe?

I had actually gone down to get the cloud reflections in the water with the little red canoe, nothing screams Summer better than that! I also had to bail out the poor sinking ship that is was! Not a swabbie to be seen to help! I should have maybe bailed first, photography secound…? Oh well:) Where IS my scrub brush! Aaargghhh ye landlubbers, where’s my help? 😉

Yesterday I felt it had possibly cooled down enough, first day of summer to brave a walk out to check the mail…CRA still owes me a large sum, forever hopeful! I just started taking an antibiotic as well, Doxycycline, as the doctor’s office called last week saying my Lyme test was negative, but it was not good news for the anaplasmosis bacteria test…sigh…so no sunshine or UV as the antibiotic causes severe sensitivity to that…summer, and no shorts allowed. At least it explains the creaky hip and knee joints, and I just thought I was getting old…very very quickly! Did I say how much I HATE ticks! Ha! I donned my bug hat, put on an extra layer of long sleeves over my t-shirt, those deerflies bite through single layers, and camera in hand headed off down the road…it turned brisk, again, geez! I thought those dragonflies were doing their jobs, slackers they are! I did get a few new butterflies! At least I thought I did, well, one new one! Its amazing how quickly you can focus and shoot when being swarmed by an air assault of deer flies!

The Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis) was new for this Spring and posed like a pro! Did somebody just draw a blank when naming this guy? Ha! The someone posted the underwing has a question mark on it! OK! I stand corrected. The Little Wood Satyr’s were proving difficult and flighty! SIT still! The White admiral which iNaturalist told me was a red spotted admiral was incorrect so not always right! Then there were dragonflies and my battery died. I always walk back then thinking…this is when the bear is going to come out of the bushes and poses perfectly and I have a dead camera battery…he didn’t, so, next time anyway, spare battery in the pocket!

A lot of Whitefaces…these are at least a bit more explanatory;) There were some Eastern Pondhawks and Blue dashers as well, love those greens and blues! So far none of the big blue and green darner dragonflies yet! And there were wildflowers, we’ll save that. Also donkeys, fighting orioles, cranky woodpeckers and why my hummer photos have “landing feet” all the time;) Stay tuned!