Independence

It turns out that Mondays severe storm did more than add 2″ to our pool!

A very close tree got struck by lightning, too! Here’s the tree (arrowed), from our patio area; if you look about half way up you can see where bark has been removed by the strike.
Even clearer at the very top, including the obvious spiraling of the strike as it follows the natural twist of the tree, and lower down, the tree caught fire or at least was smoldering:

We did hear a crazy loud lightning strike along with many others, but didn’t at the time realize it was as close as it turned out to be!

For a long while now, both this year and last year, we’ve watched a family of Great Blue Herons – but it’s clear now that this year, there’s two separate nests in the one tree! The original top nest has only one bird today; unclear if it’s a parent, or a grown up chick, but in the second lower nest, there’s a parent and two chicks – I wonder if the parent is one of last years young?