June 9, 2004
There has been so much nature around here! Several (well, at least two) adult cardinals, one of each sex, have learned how to use the seed feeder. They leave little seed-case slivers all over the porch. The juvenile doesn’t yet seem to have figured it out. He hops around, chipping, looking at and sometimes pecking the feeder, jumping up to the ledge it sits on, but so far never figuring out that he needs to land on the perch. Whenever the adults are around he begs at the top of his voice.

Speaking of baby birds, a few days ago we saw a juvenile Cooper’s hawk that had fallen out of its nest in the back section of Harlowe’s nursery. It was very fierce-looking, but adorable, as it sat under a table probably wondering who all those giants were who were staring at it. From an overhead branch its mama stared at us, probably wishing she could tear us limb from limb. The fledgling was about the size of a small dog, and could probably bite you just as bad if not worse.

I have more plants around my riparian paradise now, and it looks great, but there’s a lot of algae in the water. My old fountain algae cleaner doesn’t seem to be working, so when it wears off I’ll try something more heavy-duty.

My big wildlife sighting today was a rat, running across the back porch. I’m assuming—hoping—it was a pack rat. Not that they are loveable, but I think they are less creepy than Norwegian rats.