Sunday, July 16, 2017 - Some More Yard Notes and Interesting Evening Weather

  Later Notes for Sunday - As it turned out, I didn't do anything that I was planning to do as far as clearing the trails at the creek or testing out my old aquarium. There was just too much going on around the house and the day became very hot and humid. So I put these things off as projects for later.  

  I had taken a lot of photos of the back yard earlier Sunday afternoon (at the same time that I was taking photos of Feather Run), including a new "development" in the weed patch that is growing along the south side of our shed. Just this Friday, what I'm assuming is a Sunflower started to bloom there, amongst the Narrow-Leaved Milkweeds, Queen Anne's Lace, and other plants. It was really showy, so I took a couple of photos of it. The images are below: 

  As far as the weather went, Sunday turned into a hot and humid day, as the stationary front sagged south toward us. We'd started out with a low of 63F and a Dew Point of 61F, and by noon we were up to 77F with the Dew Point still tolerable at 64F. However, even with increasing low clouds through afternoon, the high temperature jumped to 86F and the Dew Point went as high as 71F! There were, as expected, scattered storm cells around Central Indiana during the afternoon, but none of them passed near the far southeast side of Marion County. 

  The weather took a very strange turn here, however, just before sunset. By 8:30 PM there was a small but potent thunderstorm cell that blew through Indianapolis, and it passed just a few miles northeast of our neighborhood, moving from northwest to southeast, generally along Interstate 74. There were almost constant thunder rumbles heard at home, and there were also a few sprinkles of rain. The view of the storm from our back porch was just incredible! I took several photos and even a video of it using my cell phone camera. Here are three photos that I took at 8:57 PM EDT, looking north, then almost overhead and to the west, and finally to the southwest: 

  Here is a final photo of the thunderstorm as it was starting to weaken and retreat further to the southwest, lit up by the setting sun, at 9:08 PM EDT. I didn't really play with the color at all! It was a golden color from the sunset that was taking place from almost the opposite direction in the sky.

  As dusk came on and the weather quieted, I should also note that I heard the first Katydids of the season in the back yard. Their sharp rasps joined what has been a rising night insect chorus every night this month; up from the softer cricket sounds that I started to hear in June.
 
  By midnight we were down to 76F and the Dew Point was still at 71F. We had only a Trace of Rain from all of the passing storms, and more were still blowing up around Indianapolis even at that late hour.

Sunday, July 16, 2017 - Some Back Yard / Feather Run Notes

  It's now Noon on Sunday, July 16th; officially the mid-point of summer. Skies are partly cloudy with cumulus clouds and there seems to be some haze in the air. There's a light to moderate steady breeze out there. The NWS site tells me that the current temperature is 77 degrees F with the Dew Point at 64F. A stationary front is trying to sag its way south toward Indianapolis from the southern Great Lakes today, bringing with it a slight chance for scattered thunderstorms later this afternoon and evening. This front is bringing us more clouds, haze, and humidity after we enjoyed drier air and sunnier skies Friday the 14th and Saturday the 15th, when high pressure was over the area. This high pressure, in turn, had replaced some very hot and rainy weather for most of last week. 

  Cicadas first started buzzing in my neighborhood on the very first day of July, and their numbers were already impressive just a few days later. Today their buzzing is coming in constant waves! I have yet to find any shed Cicada nymph skins, but, I haven't really gone out and looked for them, either. 

  After dropping Adrian off at work, I took a walk out to the easement to check up on Feather Run. However, as my cell phone camera photos show, there isn't much to see there! The growth of Cattails and other plants around the stream has been extraordinary this year (I'm guessing that's the result of a very mild last winter followed by a very rainy spring and summer so far.) When we received nearly 2" of rain last Tuesday the 11th, the water overflowed the banks, and it was visible beyond the cattail stands. Today, however, the vegetation is again blocking any view I have of the stream itself.

  The two photos below show what my "view" of Feather Run looks like today, such as it is, with all of the plants thriving along the bank and within the stream bed itself.

As can be seen in the photo below, the Narrow-Leaved Cattails seem to be at their peak. They still have the top staminate flowers and have those sausage-like pistillate flowers below. (I think that all of the Cattails are the Narrow-Leaved species as opposed to the Common Cattail species that doesn't have the gap between these two types of flowers, but I may take a closer look at this later today.

  Red-Winged Blackbirds are still present in pretty good numbers at Feather Run today; both males and females. I'm sure they nested there this year. But I never found any actual nests and I haven't successfully identified any juveniles yet. 

  I am still playing with the idea of setting up an aquarium at home holding some of the life that lives in our stream; plants and small organisms; maybe even fish (though I haven't seen any fish for sure so far this year ... with the few looks at the water that I've had. I think that I might take the first steps toward actually doing this today. I may make a small "trail" or two from our side of the easement to the edge of the stream bed. I may also get my old ten gallon fish tank out of the garage and see if it holds water (it was the dry home of my pet gecko ten years ago).

  Another reason I want to make these small trails is because, even after almost two years, I still have the Hoosier Riverwatch Project in mind. If I ever get the materials together and get involved with this volunteer research, I think I'll be using Feather Run for practice. 

  While I'm clearing the vegetation to create some (hopefully) small-impact trails today, I'm also going to try to get some more looks at the stream itself today and try to identify some more life I see there. I'll try to post what I find in this entry.