9 September, 2018            Random – but fortunately a hawk came to visit

Red-tail landed in my backyard while I was cutting grass!

Some weeks I don’t get any pictures I love (except gardenias) but this week a young hawk landed in the backyard. Right while I was mowing my yard! Flew in and landed above my head! I was mowing the grass – gasoline mower, noisy and rattling, everything. I saw the shadow fly over so I stopped and looked up and there it was – perched directly over my head. This next picture shows where I stopped the mower and looked up and saw the hawk. I said hello, dropped my gloves on the ground and went inside and got my camera. When I came back out, the hawk was still there. I sat on the chair in the lower left to take this picture. 

The hawk was perched on a branch high up on the right side of that pine. I sat on the chair to take this picture.

Our gardenias attract me, and this week they attracted a visitor I’d never noticed before. I relocated it to a Rose of Sharon (hibiscus) in another corner of our yard. It sprayed my gloves with what could be called gardenia leaf colored saliva. I’m not sure what that was meant to indicate. Anger or fear or anxiety or some combination. Always good to have a new visitor in the yard. Check out this camo – incredible:

Look at the remarkable camo on this gardenia gobbling caterpillar:

When I told Turner about it, he offered to “stand” guard near the gardenia, but he sometimes lies down on the job. You don’t need lightning reflexes to catch a caterpillar, so Turner conserved his energy:

Turner guarding potted gardenia on right side of image:

Gardenias aren’t our only flower – as you’re aware. It’s night now and I’m in my office, but I think you may be able to stand next to the gardenia and see this rose:

I can look one direction and see a gardenia and turn my head and see this:

This is a picture of the gardenia plant from Wednesday. The scent from a single one of those buds will fill up any room. It’s amazing there are so many. You can’t even see them all in this picture. No wonder those caterpillars are around:

Look at that. 4 visible in 1 image. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Here are two pictures from the river this morning. Same fungus:

Iphone on fungus – see my image?

Camera on fungus

I normally take a lot of dog pictures, but I overdid it this morning, even by my standards. You’d think I could do better than this. But I ended up with five dogs this AM. They’re fun but the leash/camera/phone juggling act is more than moderately challenging:

Dogs making “Cat’s Cradle” out of retractable leashes

Ev’s got another new (to me) flower growing outside my office window, a lantana. It’s a camera friendly flower – look at those colors and textures – but I haven’t gotten an image I love yet. But this is a good start: 

One of many different lantana buds:

Beautyberry almost shading the lantana

Have a great week! I’m up way too late! All best, 

Jay