When people aren’t complaining about drought, conversations turn to dog ticks. How many did you pick off your dog or yourself today?

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The big damselflies called ebony jewelwing make it hard to walk the brook any faster than at a snail’s pace. The black wings of the males are pretty, but it’s their shining emerald abdomens that stop you in your tracks. They occur in masses here along the top of a new beaver dam.
Maybe it’s the heat. All things green seem to be extra large this year, despite it being droughty. Wild raspberries are also plumper than in years past
Most of us have heard that the CO2 level in Earth’s atmosphere today is higher than it’s been in a million years, but a new study, published in Geology, concludes that there’s now more CO2 than there has been in the past 23 million years. Something to think about while we fan ourselves.
The height of the severed plants in your garden can give a clue to the culprit. Rodents leave roughly inch-tall stumps. Cottontails between 2 and 3 inches. Mature deer between 12 and 16 inches.
Birds that make a second nest are at it. Empty robin eggshells, the phoebe fee-beeing away, bluebirds at the bird boxes, and wrens carrying twigs are all back.
Hummingbirds have been reported in the past few days not far from where I live. They typically arrive here around May 15th. It’s been a bit colder than normal here in the past month, making a person wonder what’s up.
The hot, hot weather in late May took a toll on apple blossoms. They seem to have opened up on one day and disappeared the next. Of course, my sense of time, and most everyone else’s, may be a bit off, due to isolation and discombobulation.
The hummingbird clearwing moth and the snowberry clearwing moth both look and act like little hummingbirds. Uncommon enough to be an exciting find, but common enough to be seen most years. I can’t tell the two species apart (both in the genus Hemaris) but that’s ok with me for now.