Follow Friday 6-21-24: Dragons

Today's theme is Dragons. See also last week's theme, Dragon Age.

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Birdfeeding

Today is mostly sunny and sweltering.

I fed the birds.  I've seen several house finches, several robins, and a mourning dove.

I put out water for the birds and watered a few plants.  There are even more honeybees on the birdbath than yesterday.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the blue spruce and pawpaw seedlings in the savanna.

Butterflies are feeding in the wildflower garden.  :D  I saw a black swallowtail and a medium-sized brown-spotted one that might have been a hackberry emperor or some sort of fritillary.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the patio plants.

I saw at least a couple of dark-eyed juncos, might have been more; a bunch of birds flew out of the forest garden when I went outside.  I almost never see those in the summer, they're winter birds here.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the picnic table plants and the barrel garden.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the septic garden.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the notch in the prairie garden, telephone pole garden, and grass patch.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I watered the tower strip and part of the monarch strip in the prairie garden.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I finished watering the monarch strip, the bluestem strip, and a few other things in the prairie garden.

Fireflies are coming out.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

EDIT 6/21/24 -- I got to see the Strawberry Moon tonight.  At first it was a deep peach color, but as it rose higher, it lightened and looked more pinkish.  Some years it is really pink, almost reddish.

Strawberry Moon

How to observe a ‘moon illusion’ when the strawberry full moon peaks tonight

The full moon — which will reach the crest of its fullness at 9:08 p.m. ET Friday — comes one day after the summer solstice, the day of the year when the sun appears the highest in the sky for the Northern Hemisphere. Since a full moon is opposite the sun, this strawberry moon will shine lower in the sky than usual, according to NASA.

Because of this “lower than average path across the sky,” the full moon could have an “orange- or amber-colored appearance, for the same reason sunsets appear orange or reddish,” said Preston Dyches, a science communicator with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in an email.