Heat, Humidity and Butterflies – And a Mississippi Kite
When I stepped outside this morning at 10:00, it was already very warm and humid, but for some reason did not seem unpleasant. The flowers in pots and planters on our front porch were wet with big drops of water, maybe left over from yesterday’s heavy rain, or maybe from morning dew. Cicadas sang, and as I stood there for a couple of minutes, I could not hear a single bird at all through their loud, rasping whine. Several dragonflies zipped low over the grass in open areas. A bright fresh-green anole scurried across brown mulch below the oaks. One Chipping Sparrow flew down to forage in the grass along the edge of the driveway.
No Scarlet Tanager sang this morning – at least, I didn’t hear one at this time or earlier. The last time I heard its song for sure was almost a week ago, though over the weekend I did hear the chik-brrr calls in the woods nearby.
Four Tiger Swallowtails, a Black Swallowtail, and lots of Silver-spotted Skippers fluttered in a butterfly bush and in the yellow blooms of lantana. A Red-spotted Purple floated around the wax myrtles. Grasshoppers snapped and flew. Wasps buzzed. Yellowjackets prowled around the base of the bird bath and around the roots of trees and in bushes. I think of August as the month of insects, and this year they should be especially abundant, with all the wet, hot weather. Lots of pretty little white mushrooms have popped up all over the green grass in our yard.
Along the way as I walked, I began to hear a few birds . . . the trill of a Carolina Wren, a Bluebird’s blurry song, Titmouse, Chickadee, Crow, Cardinal, the rattle of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The sky was hazy blue with distant high white clouds, but the sun felt good, and there were pleasant light breezes. One Turkey Vulture soared low and one Black Vulture high.
In the old field were more butterflies – Sleepy Orange, delicate yellow Sulphurs, and others I didn’t see well enough to name, orange and yellow and brown. A young Red-tailed Hawk perched on a pole and screamed. A White-eyed Vireo and Eastern Towhee sang, Mourning Doves cooed from the wires, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called spee, and I heard a Summer Tanager’s pik-a-tuk call from the dense stand of pines and other trees toward the south end of the field. There was no sign of Blue Grosbeaks this morning, not even their calls from the thickets and weeds. But I was surprised to see two Orchard Orioles again – whether the same two or not I couldn’t say for sure, though it seems likely. Today they were much lower in the privet shrubs, and harder to see, only poking a greenish-yellow head up now and then, mostly staying hidden.
On my way back toward home, the distant speck of a soaring bird steadily drifted closer and turned out to be a Mississippi Kite. It soared directly over, a sleek dark-gray raptor with long slender wings, it circled back three or four times, and finally sailed off fast toward the southeast.