Baby Birds and Fireflies

Late spring and early summer a heat wave came through and now it is cooler but rainy. It has been good for the grass, weeds and garden (not to mention the corn fields that surround us) but has put a stop to burning the fallen brush and branches we accumulated over the winter. One thing that has not stopped around the place is birds mating, eggs hatching and chicks squeaking for food. This is our fourth summer out here and there are more birds than during the previous three. The majority are robins, followed by finches, swallows, a couple of mourning doves, thrashers and a humming bird I recently spotted visiting the hollyhocks. Not on our acreage but in the ditches along our road we see (and hear) beautiful pheasants strutting and calling. Dragonflies of many sizes and colors zip around, then hover and cavort with with each other, and are gone again. Come sundown the fireflies slowly begin to light up and seem to vanish and reappear at different places. The corn is now so high (over seven feet tall) that you can only see a few dozen fireflies at a time against the green walls surrounding us, but when on a higher position (such as the back porch) you can look out over the fields and see thousands of greenish-yellow lights blinking in the summer darkness.