Something green, something blue, something orange, and something new.

It was still a pretty nice morning, although temps and humidity are creeping back up, but summer is really starting to wind down. The cacophony of bird chatter is pretty much gone, and all that is left is the quiet chirp of crickets and an occasional crow, jay, or oriole call.

I spotted one green heron on the pond, along with nine wood ducks and six mallards but no night heron today.

I spotted one blue heron on the river and a slew of mallards but no geese or beaver today.

There was one monarch on the thistle at the soccer fields, and it looked about as roughed up by the recent storms as the tiger swallowtail did, but that didn’t seem to damp his appetite.

Finally, I spotted an early harbinger of the coming change of seasons, a wooly bear caterpillar, aka an isabella tiger moth larva, whom we haven’t seen since that odd sighting last January. You may be as surprised to learn as I was that there are at least five “Woollybear festivals” across the eastern US.

Before you know it, I’ll be taking pictures of aster blossoms to show you. Yay!