Nature Notes: Pleasant Days

I can't believe how pleasant it is after such awful June and July weather.

August has been getting better and better. We've had rain to refresh the plants, cooler temperatures and just the right amount of sun.

I guess the highs aren't my favorite temperatures but I don't really mind since the evenings and mornings are so nice. Even the highs aren't anything like as bad as they were all through June and July.

I felt the earthquake tremors (Tuesday around 2:00 PM) when I was inside which was a tad strange.

I thought a jet had flown too near the house. I even went outside to make sure there wasn't a crash.

My neighbor called and said did you feel that? She explained about the earthquakes.

I googled and sure enough Raleigh, NC where I live was impacted in a minor way.

My daughter called to make sure I was alright because she saw that where I live was one of the places that were feeling it.

I was glad she called because she works in DC and I had read that they were affected when I was doing my googling.

She said they felt it which was weird working on a high floor of a tall building but it was fine.

The goldenrod, solidago, (shot above) on the Shelley Lake trails is very happy now that it got some rain.

There is also a lot of partridge pea Chamaechrista fasciculate, Caesalpinia family (Caesalpiniaceae) blooming, shots above and below.

I like the way the young mallards have the little touch of blue in their feathers.

The next shot is a male common whitetail dragonfly. In looking this up I noticed that the dragonfly on my last week's nature notes was an immature male whitetail dragonfly. I didn't realize that until I looked this one up.

I wasn't fast enough to catch a shot of the great blue heron flying and he didn't land at a good place for a photograph but I took one anyway.

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