Phenology for 5/23/11

Weather: Sunny and warm on Saturday. Sunny and increasingly humid on Sunday morning. Thunderstorm between 6 and 8 p.m.; some hail, but no further damage noticed at the Cat Sanctuary. Really strange sunset--not a pretty red-gold sunset, but an intense, lurid, reddish-yellow light in the sky for at least half an hour. This morning, fog until about 10 a.m. Now the sun is shining, temperatures are around 80, and the newspaper reports thousands of people without electricity again.

(Wouldn't we all love to send this rain to Texas, where they're having a drought disaster?!)

Birds: Saturday afternoon, a nuthatch flew around the woodshed, presumably to pick up some treasure that had dropped out of a load of wood. (The cats ignored it; they chase only birds that creep along the ground.)

Sunday and today, on the road below the house, a male robin flew and lighted just ahead of me for about 50 yards as I walked toward town, chirping, probably trying to steer me away from his mate on the nest. (Male robins have black heads; females' heads are drab, just like their backs.)

Insects: pair of Tiger Swallowtails in the yard this morning; pair of Grape Leaf Rollers slipped in and flew around the lamp in the office last night.

(For the Amazon link, what about music? I don't know whether the band called Swallowtail ever released a CD, or only LP's and cassettes. Anyway, lovely English/Scottish/Irish dance tunes. To buy, send title and shipping address to https://www.paypal.me/PriscillaKingUS/16 .)