It's a jungle out there

People, no one told us The Beav would turn out to be the epi-center of a weird and wonderful Wild Kingdom. No one.

Let me introduce you to a partial cast of characters who basically rule the Postage Stamp Patio these days:

B-52
Our resident tyrannical hummingbird. He's been with us all winter, having scared off any other hummingbird within a 600 mile radius of The Lane. He is fearless -- and regularly buzzes us as we come in and out the backdoor. It's like living on an airport runway.

B-52 also is quite demanding -- darting back and forth impatiently in front of the kitchen window while I clean and re-fill his feeder. I rather suspect he'd open the kitchen door and come in to speed up the process if he had opposable thumbs.

Now if he would only stand still long enough for an avian portrait.

The Crater-Nator and Rocky the Flying Squirrel
These bushy-tailed backyard terrorists have kept us hopping this spring. Around the middle of March, my date and began noticing a legion of golf ball-size (and bigger!) craters making their appearance throughout the Postage Stamp Patio flower beds and pots. I was not a happy camper when this involved the displacement, and subsequent fatality, of several potted coleus.

The culprit is The Crater-Nator -- in a relentless search for non-existent nuts that he's convinced are "squirreled" away in and around the PSP. He's no bigger than a guinea pig, but more than makes up for his diminutive stature with the holes he leaves peppered around the garden.

I may be small, but I be mighty.

Rocky, on the other hand, has an obsession with our bird feeder filled with black oil sunflowers. (God help him if ever messes with B-52's source of sustenance. He will be one dead rodent.) He stops by daily to analyze ways he can raid the feeder.

I've caught him hanging upside down from the gutter trying make a landing, but Rocky is a little too portly to make this happen. I think he's also tried a flying leap at the feeder at least once.

Just a hunch.

And finally. . .

The Brady Bunch
About 10 days ago, I whenever I used the front door, a junco would fly out of our railing flower box filled with some very leggy pansies. Didn't think much of it -- juncos are professional foragers and I assumed there were good eats somewhere in the planter.

That was till last Sunday when I discovered this on my way out to fetch the newspaper.

We are junco grandparents! The first hatchling made his/her appearance yesterday. We couldn't be prouder.

Family portrait to follow, but till then. . . .

Happy Sunday from our little family to all of yours.  

(Anybody want to adopt a couple of psycho squirrels?)