The AOG High Beam Semi-finals!

It was a scorcher of a day at the NJ AOG Stadium with the heat-index approaching 100 F!  This made for hot birds, happy insects and a very sweaty reporter.  However,  patience is always rewarded and in this case by a surprise appearance by the men's Team Goldfinch!  Golden Boy, seen here, was receiving some last minute advice from his teammates as he prepared to scale the sunflower high beam.  He scored a nearly perfect 9.5, losing a half point when he tried to grab a seed out of the flower head at the end of the beam.  Well, you can scarcely blame him, can you?

In other AOG news today...

Team Hummie called a break in their practice to cool down in the only way they can.  Shortly after, the entire team of 12 was seen doing high speed maneuvers all over the arena.

Team Great Spangled Fritillary sent an emissary to check out the nectar supply and seemed quite pleased.  We hope they'll be making another appearance during the Games.

And qualifying for the welter-weight boxing division was Team Ambush Bug's very own Roy.  He's the shy type and didn't want to come out of the buddleia to be interviewed.  Or maybe he was planning something nefarious...it's hard to tell with Ambush Bugs.

And I tried to interview Team Bottle Green Fly but the star got into a snit and flew off.  Prima donnas.

Teams Squirrel and Chippie are driving me crazy, running amok all over the arena and paying absolutely NO attention whatsoever to the rules.  And today Team Chippie's female star, Flossie, ran right over my foot - some nerve.  Oy.

Tomorrow is going to be more of the same heat, so I expect I'll be seeing more of the insect teams and less of the birds...but one never knows with the AOG.

As always, please take a moment to check out the wonderful entries from around the world.  Today's can be found at #AOG11

I continue to rescue monarch caterpillars from around the garden. Our deck now looks like a greenhouse little mesh pods everywhere.  My poor long-suffering Hubs...

Debbi