One morning recently, I opened the back door to go sit outside with my coffee, and found chipmunks racing back and forth, a young bunny who pelted for a hedge, a baby robin who had become far more respectable looking in the past week—his feathers have all come in—and a red squirrel jumping up and down on the neighbor’s fence because of a black squirrel who was fussing at a fox squirrel about something else—probably the neighbor’s cat, who was sitting in his kitchen window watching the proceedings with great interest.
Noticeably absent and missed, were the chimney swifts—I seen one or two swifts some evenings, not the flocks we had even a decade ago. Their soft twittering early in the morning had been one of the most certain signs of fast-approaching summer. I miss them; they live on the wing, feasting on flying insects. However, In addition to the animals I mentioned earlier, we have purple finches, chickadees, mourning doves, and a few cardinals, downy woodpeckers, flickers, and house sparrows, but right now, the robins are the avian entertainment.
Robins
The parents park fledglings while they go hunting, but they don’t always choose the most sensible places. We have a neighbor cat who fancies himself an ornithologist, so parking a baby less than two yards from the bird feeder is a risky notion.
This baby was standing in the water dish, but he moved to the edge when I came over to photograph him. The water dish is safer from predators, but even on a summer’s day his body heat would slowly be sucked out by the cool water.
This baby was left in the strangest spot of all. He is sitting on the edge of the wood chip mulch around a small tree on a neighbor’s lawn extension. Many neighbors walk by with dogs—bouncy, engaged-with-the-world dogs.
In a week or so these babies will be sturdy enough to run after their parents squalling, and will eventually fly after them. That’s got to make worm hunting very hard.
Chipmunks
While I don’t want to encourage the chipmunks, they are on balance more entertaining than destructive, and they don’t seem to eat too much bird food, although they do get into it. Chipmunks are farmers; they bury whole cheekfuls of seeds, which I find popping up like little green bouquets in little out-of-the-way spots, including flowerpots.
Chipmunks also seem to have a very strong sense of order. This chipmunk had to stop for a drink—I was making him completely frantic by rearranging a bed of small hostas.
Here he is again, following behind me, tamping the soil carefully back into place. I unearthed one sprouting peanut in the process of rearranging the hostas, so there is probably a whole stash in that bed. He was pretty frantic by the time I was done.
Chipmunks are opportunists—they clean up the safflower seeds that fall from the feeder as the finches careen around it. They will also shimmy up the bird feeder pole and jump, or jump from the nearest tree limb to get at the birds’ safflower seed. They are not supposed to like safflower, but they have learned to live with it. The serviceberry is providing another big opportunity. I was unloading groceries when I heard a scuffle in the serviceberry, and found two chipmunks brawling.
Rabbits
Lastly, there are the rabbits. Sooo many rabbits. Bunnies popping out of undergrowth! If they would just stick to eating the lawn, I would be happy, but they eat the clover in the lawn—well, OK to that—and a lot of other things, including tulips, blue fescue, Fothergilla, and numerous other ornamental and edible plants. I told this one to skedaddle, but he had to stop and check the clover on his way out of the yard.
There’s enough to eat now. They really do most of their damage when there is little available to eat.
Bees and Other Flying Things
There have been far fewer bees this year, both honey bees and our native mason bees, but there are some.
We have a lot of different pollinators: honey bees, mason bees, bumblebees, and little metallic green bees, but there are some flies as well.
Overall, it is quieter out in the yard than it has been in the past. It’s not the peaceful quiet of life continuing apace. It’s the ominous quiet of many missing creatures. Some of this quiet is due to habitat destruction in various winter digs far to our south, and some of it is right here in town, as the city continues to encourage tearing down houses with yards and replacing them with apartment buildings and urban condominium developments that have virtually no green space left—just some planters.
An addendum
June 24, 2018
I spotted fireflies last night, and this morning, the little green metallic bee showed up for the first time this year for the newly opened Rosa setigera flowers.
