Nature Notes: heading to a new month

I'm almost afraid to mention how pleasant it is with cooler temperatures.

I feel like for close to a month I'll say it's getting cooler and then bam the heat hits hard and heavy again. The main difference in September and August this year has been in the evenings and mornings and a few cooler September days.

But with the end of September and moving into the extended forecast it is much cooler and doesn't look like it will be getting hot again. I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying that.

The Virginia Creeper below started dropping it's leaves before they turned red because of the combo of hot days and virtually no rain the past few weeks. I didn't realize that there was a bird's nest in there until the vine started dying back.

I do have Virginia Creeper in my front yard which is doing fine (probably because it's in the shade unlike the vine above in the back yard) and at least I'll get to see that turn red.

Fortunately we finally got a nice soaking rain and I was definitely ready to see it. The saving grace this summer was plenty of rain with the heat but September has been much drier so rain is welcome at this point.

I hope that we won't see any more extreme heat until next summer. It's encouraging that on average the rest of this week into the next one looks like it will be about 20 degrees cooler than last week. I didn't intend this to turn into a weather report but that seems to be what this week's nature notes has been.

Click for the home of Nature Notes. The new link goes up there by Thursday.

Today's Flowers - Looking back to better growing months

At the moment my garden looks a lot more like an abandoned lot than a garden.

I decided to cheer myself up by looking at photographs I took of flowers in my garden during the early summer.

I have so many photographs of my flowers that I haven't used on my blog before that it was hard to decide which ones to use.

For flowers around the world, visit the home site for Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Natural

The theme this week is another of those wide open themes with many choices. I like to watch the natural cycles of life around my house.

The first shot is after the redbud tree has finished flowering and is starting to form the pods which hold the seeds for new trees. The shot below is after the pods and leaves are mature later in the growing season. The natural process means lots of volunteer trees will appear around my yard some of which I let grow when they volunteer somewhere I want a new redbud. The animals also eat a lot of the redbud seeds which nature provides them.

I have stuck with my natural hair color although what was once all brown is now getting some frosted looking strands courtesy of mother nature. My forehead is also filled with natural lines.

The money plant forms seed pods which start as green and then turn white. Having a natural garden, even after the pods have released their seeds, I let the empty white husks below sparkle on the ground.

One last natural cycle in my garden is demonstrated by the hibiscus below (rose of sharon) which has gone to seed.

For other natural photohunters, please visit the home of the hunt where links are posted beginning Saturday mornings.

Nature Notes: Nature around my house

I've been excited by each sign of fall although it's barely begun. The dogwood trees are great for a preview since they change so much ahead of the rest.

The dogwood berries are already red which happened rather quickly.

The holly berries on the other hand are still all green. I'll look forward to their change in color.

I love the way some leaves have several colors, almost as if they were painted.

I've noticed a lot of webs around my house although hard to get good shots of them.

There are so many different moths flitting around but they are so fast that I only get shots of a few.

I like the way the one below has a red dot on the gray.

I have a lot of different bird baths but there are still arguments over them.

When the brown thrasher above is in the bath it's rare for any other birds to share with it. The female cardinal will share with small finches and sparrows (next two shots below) but gets into arguments with towhees.

Sometime a male and female cardinal will share the bird bath but I don't think I ever see two male cardinals in the bath together.

The female cardinal and the immature roufus-sided towhee (next two shots) chased each other away from the bird bath.

They didn't seem too mad after they got away from the water and noticed berries to eat.

While the larger birds were settling water disputes the small ones moved in.

Sometimes as many as five small finches and sparrows will happily share a bird bath.

The male cardinal, like the brown thrasher, tends to get the bird bath to himself although occasionally shares with some birds.

The catbird had a turn in the bath and then flew to a spot where it could munch on berries.

I thought the towhee below was injured but when I opened the door he flew off.

To see what is going on in the natural world at other bloggers, visit the home site for nature notes (new link goes up by Thursday).

Today's Flowers: September Survivors

Only the tough are surviving at my house with continuing hot days and less rain.

My lantana is usually one of the tough flowers in my garden. The butterflies and hummingbirds like lantana which is one of the reasons I grow it. I also like the way the leaves smell like oranges.

One of my favorite plants which don't start blooming until the end of summer are the fairy asters.

I have let them volunteer all over the garden. I do that with many plants I start from seed that then self seed and crop up in new spots.

The butterflies and moths like the fairy asters. I like the way they form large masses that from a distance almost look like snow.

I have a lot of morning glories which I enjoy although some of them are growing on my roses and need to be pulled up.

The rose of sharon (hibiscus) is another tough plant I let volunteer all over the place.

Although they form bushes where they have enough room, I let them come up in places they don't have room to form shrubs.

For flowers around the world, please visit the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunter: School

The photohunters theme this week is school. I decided to go with some school drive-by- photo-shooting.

When I commute to work I am invariably stopped at lights and stop signs around the Durham School of the Arts.

I should probably point out that I'm talking about Durham, NC, U.S. since I know that I confuse some visitors to my blog from the UK when I mention Durham and don't specify which Durham I am referring to.

The shots are all quick ones taken when I was stuck in traffic at various points. I got a kick out of how the car in the shot below matched the tree.

Photohunters post their links at the home of the hunt beginning Saturday morning.