The Touchstone Breath, 69th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Another wave of severe storms rolled over the South last evening . Why do these storms always occur so late at night? It might be observational bias, at least in part, but it seems it's always like 2 a.m. when these storms hit. 

Anyway, last night there were tornado warnings and tornado watches from Chattanooga, Tennessee to just north of here. The danger line was uncomfortably close to here, just a few miles north of me, and I stayed up late watching the forecasts because they kept changing. As it turned out, a tornado watch never got called for here, but we were under an extreme thunderstorm warning for a while, as lightning flashed outside, the lights flickered (but never went out), and the rain came down in sheets. Scary stuff, and then it was all over by 3:00. 

The weather today behind the front was just delightful - dry, temperate (high 70s to low 80s), and clear skies. I got my walk in today, a whopping Polk along the river. I was hoping for a Taylor, but the Polk is still a year's best and brings my total so far for the month of May to 83.9 miles (482 on the year). 

Birds: I added the canary-like prothonotary warbler to my life list today. I had never even heard of the prothonotary before, but apparently they're shockingly bright-yellow little fellows that frequent southern swamps and wet forests, which is exactly where I found them. Anyway, the warbler brings my life list up to 31 species now.