Purple tooth and claw

Air temperature 79 F, wind west about 5 mph, high thin clouds. Heat advisory, with forecast into the 90s. Cardinal in our blueberry bushes again this morning, joining forces with the squirrels to make sure we don't get any harvest.

Monarch butterfly

Just flapping along, in an area where I don't know of any milkweed plants. But you don't know unless you check. Also, adult merlin perched near that nest. No nest calls or visible movement on the nest.

Statistics

Keep seeing that "most dangerous cities in the US" network news post. I wandered through it and note that the Top Ten all have murder *rates* per 100,000 population that are higher than the Maine total for a state of over 1,000,000 population. Population density kills.

(no subject)

Air temperature 92 F, heat index 98. Couch-potato index somewhere around 11, on a scale of 1-10 . . .