canaries

red eyed verio

from batwrangler on flickr

Sunny and cool. Spotted a dragonfly in the back yard. There is a red eyed verio living down by the creek. They are distinctive because they sing almost constantly. They have been observed making over 20,000 calls a day. Black flies and deer flies have made their appearance.

The mourning dove survey was a lot of fun, but there was one sobering note. I told Doug that I had seen bumblebees, but no honeybees. He said that they were both in trouble, not just the honeybees. In fact, apparently all pollinaters are being affected by the pesticides in the plants they contact. It's June, and I haven't seen one bat darting through the evening skies here on the other side of the creek. There don't seem to be as many swallows around as there used to be either. I wonder if these are the canaries in the proverbial coal mine?