Saturday Afternoon on the Deck – Green Anole, Broadhead Skink, Common Sooty Wing, and a Pair of Summer Tanagers
In a warm, sunny hour on the deck this afternoon, it felt good to be lazy for a while, leaning back and watching white clouds drift across a big blue sky, while a surprising number of birds and other animals were active all around the yard – not lazy at all.
A male and a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird came frequently to the feeder that hangs from the deck rail, thrumming and twittering. A Red-shouldered Hawk cried kee-yer, soaring in the southeast. Chimney swifts chittered overhead. A Mourning Dove cooed from the woods. Summer Tanagers called a rapid pik-a-tuk, and sometimes an even quicker, long tik-a-tik-a-tit-tit-it-it-it-it, descending, like a finger running over a comb. A Red-bellied Woodpecker called quuurrrr, a Great Crested Flycatcher, breet. A Pine Warbler sang around the edges of the back yard. A Chipping Sparrow trilled out front. Carolina Chickadees chattered, a Tufted Titmouse sang its peter-peter song, a Carolina Wren and a Cardinal sang.
A Tiger Swallowtail lingered in the butterfly bush beside the deck, a Red-spotted Purple fluttered over the red blooms of a hanging geranium plant, and a smaller, dark Common Sooty Wing butterfly came to visit the yellow and pink blooms of six lantana plants I’d bought just this morning, still in their black plastic pots. Similar to the Scalloped Sooty Wing, a small, dark butterfly with a stocky body, black and dark copper-colored, but with more white spots, a cluster of white spots toward the outer wing, and its wings not scalloped, though the edges appeared to be lightly ruffled and fringed.
Our resident Green Anole patrolled the deck as usual, lithe, and bright clear green in the sun, running along the rail, pausing to puff out its pink throat, and making its way toward a fern that hangs from a shepherd’s crook, where it likes to sit – stretched out and draped over the top of the crook. The anole is almost always somewhere around the deck, often the less showy female, too. She looks a little smaller, but maybe that’s only because she’s more reclusive, more likely to stay in the shadows, and she usually appears a muted greenish-brown, not so bright green.
This afternoon, a Fence Lizard and a Broadhead Skink also were nearby – both on the warm, sunny brick side of the house. The gray and scaly Fence Lizard was climbing up the corner of the house. When it paused and lifted its head to look around, a deep-blue throat flashed in the sunlight. The Broadhead Skink is a much stranger-looking creature, I think, but maybe that’s only because I’ve seen it much less often. This one was large, thick-bodied and shiny-brown all over, with a very big, broad, neon-orange head. The back of the head was especially wide, looking swollen and orange. It slithered straight up the brick wall and disappeared over the ledge of my office windows, but on the way, stopped long enough for a good look. We often see the dark-striped, blue-tailed juvenile skinks on the deck, scurrying to hide under a folded chair or potted plant, but seldom see an adult. This one was impressive. The orange or red color in the head will fade when breeding season is over.
The pik-a-tuk calls of Summer Tanagers came closer, and a red male flew into a pine on the edge of the yard and perched in view for three or four minutes. Sometimes the plumage of male Summer Tanagers looks a little ragged or uneven to me, but this one seemed uncommonly handsome and fresh rose-red. The female flew into the same tree, but stayed screened by pine needles and all I could see was a shadowy yellow shape.
Several hours later, when we were back out on the deck at the end of the day, the chick-brrr calls of a Scarlet Tanager moved through the woods nearby. I haven’t heard the song of a Scarlet Tanager for quite a while and was afraid a conflict with the Summer Tanagers might have made the Scarlet leave. So it’s nice to know it’s still around.
And for the first time this evening – though they may have been out before now – I noticed fireflies in the yard, low over the grass and shrubs at twilight.