Meanwhile, the heat and humidity have helped fuel growth for other plants.

The sunflowers have bloomed and seem to now be past their prime. I had let some morning glories climb the sunflowers.

This extra weight could have helped some of sunflowers to an early demise.

The orange flowers of jewel weed provided some additional color the landscape. Some of my relatives reminded me that my grandfather taught us as kids to call them "poppies." We used to gleefully run through the woods finding and "activating" the springy seed pods of jewel weed.

"Coral fungi are recognized by their curious branching and their clustered appearance, as shown at the right. Usually they grow in the woods and frequently are found on decaying logs. Some are brightly colored," said a post on www.backyardnature.net.

There are many types of coral fungus. I found it difficult to nail down identities.

However a post on  wpamushroomclub.org titled "Coral fungi of Western PA" which was posted by Richard Jacob  did provide some insightful information in the form of a presentation.

"High winds that are sustained for long periods of time can actually dry nectar pools inside the flowers. ...Wind can quickly dry up soil moisture and will increase plant transpiration and evaporation rates. Although this type of water loss may be small, it could reduce nectar production as the water moves more rapidly through the plant instead of being allocated to nectar production," the post continued.
Nectar, while it is important to honeybees, is also very essential for hummingbirds.

"Hummingbirds routinely ingest more than their own weight in nectar each day..," penned author Noah Strycker in his book "The Thing With Feathers".
With all the fighting and flitting there's no doubt the that the winged warriors need a lot of food.

The post identified the hummingbird as "eastern North America’s sole breeding hummingbird" and stated that folks should "Enjoy them while they’re around; by early fall they’re bound for Central America, with many crossing the Gulf of Mexico in a single flight."

Locally, birder Gary Edwards in his book "Birds of Venango County" said the ruby-throated hummers arrive in mid April an departs by early October.

Plants and flowers aren't the only thing growing. A little rabbit has been hopping around the yard lately.

​Unfortunately, I discovered that the bitty bunny can fit through the fence around the vegetable garden.

It has taken a liking to the string bean plants and has trimmed some of them down.

A cucumber I picked was already sampled.

Although I am a little distressed over the garden damage, the bunny makes me laugh when its little white cotton-ball tail bounces across the yard.

​I attempted a photo, but it was just a blur of white and ears.

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​At work, a doe with two fawns was spotted browsing some vegetation by the parking lot.

Then I saw more twins on the way home that day.
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A doe with two fawns appeared along Bredinsburg Road and only a little further up the road there was yet another doe with two fawns browsing in a field.

Closer to home, trail cameras revealed that the neighborhood is home to one doe with twin fawns. 

A doe with a single fawn has also been captured by the cameras.

​A lot of the the fawn pictures were blurry as the little ones often move around their mothers to explore.

​In the yard, I had an immature chestnut-sided warbler visit. It is listed as a summer resident of Venango County.

A post on The CornellLab's allaboutbirds.org said "These slender, yellow-capped and chestnut-flanked songsters thrive in young, regrowing forests, thickets, and other disturbed areas . ... In fall, this bird molts into lime-green and grayish white plumage with a distinctive white eyering, and heads to thickets, shade-coffee plantations, and second growth forest in Central America."

It also said that "individual warblers return to the same areas year after year, joining back up with the same foraging flock it associated with the year before."
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This could explain why I had seen one in the yard almost exactly a year ago.

Meanwhile back on the Pennsylvania Native Plant Society Facebook page, members pointed to this being a good year for ghost pipes (Monotropa uniflora L.) or Indianpipe.
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An article by Chantelle DeLay on the U.S. Forest Service's website www.fs.fed.us, described the plant's appearance.

"These perennial plants are generally four to eight inches tall, with small scale-like leaves, and white five parted flowers. Plants only have one flower per stem, and flowering occurs roughly from June through September.
Stems can be found alone, but are commonly found in small clusters," DeLay posted.

DeLay went on to write that the plants do not have the green pigment chlorophyll and how the ghost pipe survives without it.

"Chlorophyll is responsible for harnessing the sun’s energy to produce carbohydrates, a process known as photosynthesis.

​Ghost pipe saps nutrients and carbohydrates from tree roots through an intermediate source, myccorhizal fungi in the genera Russula and Lactarius," DeLay continued.

A separate post on the Forest Service's site gave a description of how the flower matures.

"Upon emerging from the ground, the flower is pendant (downwardly pointed). As the anthers and stigma mature, the flower is spreading to all most perpendicular to the stem.

The fruit is a capsule. As the capsule matures, the flower becomes erect (in line with the stem). Once ripened, seed is released through slits that open from the tip to the base of the capsule. The plant is persistent after seed dispersal," that post said.

In the past few weeks, I seemed to have observed it popping up all over the forest floor. There appeared to be more this year than in the past.