There are dragons among us...

I met up early this morning with another birder and we had a great walk at my favorite local spot. We had some great birds, including a Willow Flycatcher and a new life bird for me Yellow-breasted Chat with a bonus bug! The chat was a great find as they aren't often seen in this area. I'd heard that there was a pair at this location so was hoping we might catch a glimpse of it. I considered blipping it, but when I looked at the dragon shots from today, I sighed with pleasure ...

What a day for dragons! In addition to this beautiful Common Whitetail ( Plathemis lydia) we saw
Widow Skimmers
Slaty Skimmers (one of my personal favorites)
and Pondhawks

And, just to keep us on our toes, we came across a Northern water snake sunning himself right on the bridge we wanted to walk across! Snake wins.

Back at home in time for lunch with hubs and a quick trip to the local farm to pick up tomatoes for tonight's dinner (fresh chopped tomatoes, garlic and herbs over pasta). Then, a bit of pottering in the garden where I saw my first silver spotted skipper of the summer, as well as lots of tiny brown damsels and one extremely cool green and black beetle! I don't have an id of either of the last two but if I find something definitive, I'll be back with an edit.

Last night before we headed out to dinner, there were 8 cedar waxwings in the cherry trees - I still haven't gotten over the total thrill of seeing them stick their gorgeous masked heads up our of the leaves. We seem to slowly be getting more hummers, too - definitely had a slow start this summer.

A couple of my favorite blippers celebrated milestones this weekend...

BikerBear with her 500th and Branmac with her 730th! Big congrats to both, as well as all the other blippers who've celebrated milestones in the last few days.

xxoo
Debbi