Another surprise visitor to the pond

It’ll be a short post today, if only to make up for all the verbiage I threw at you yesterday.

The cormorant was not on the pond this morning, during either of my visits. Oh well.

The yellow-crowned night-heron was there and looking a little sleepy in the shade.

A green heron was there and looking wide awake in just a bit of morning sun.

The surprising new guest at the pond, at least for me, is this beautiful orb weaver and the huge web it spun between a tree branch and the grass of the west lawn, right by the bench.

The web was easily over two feet across and the spider was right at eye level, so you can imagine how much fun it would be to walk into that in the night!

At the river I saw a couple of blue herons, a few mallards, and a whole squadron of mosquitoes.

At that point, even though I was doused with insect repellent, I had given all the blood I dared so I made a beeline for home, and here we are.