July 2

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Walking, on a too-hot day.

Pausing briefly, despite the sunny location, to get a shot of this red-velvet daylily and its predecessors.

I am liking this dame's rocket more and more.  Nice flowers, excellent seed pods, and then the seed pods turn red?  What more could we ask?

Mallow, with bud.

As I was photographing the mallow, I became aware that some small critter was moving around under the leaf litter at the foot of the plant.

I stepped back, and the movement stopped.  I stood still, and waited.  The critter noodled around, attending to important business of its own.  Eventually it ventured out enough that I glimpsed its front half, before it realized I was there and zipped back under cover.

I don't think I'd ever seen a vole before, but I think this may have been a vole.  It was very dark gray, and I couldn't see ears.  It was smaller than an adult mouse, and I've not seen wild mice as dark as this little critter.  It was tiny.  Compared to a chipmunk, it was about the size of a chipmunk compared to a fox squirrel.

Pretty cool sighting!

That was the day after the evening I saw bats.  On July 1, Wilbur and I strolled rather later than usual, due to the heat.  As we were rounding the far corner of the block across the street, I heard bats, and then saw them.  They flew round and round in tight circles.  There were at least three of them.

I hadn't seen any bats in years.  They do such a good job of keeping the insect population down.  Especially mosquitoes, as bats are active when mosquitoes are most active.  Hooray for bats!

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