no, no bird feeder nearby. It was sitting out front underneath some planter boxes that hang on the porch railing. I have 2 cats so I don't see many birds that close to the porch, which is why it puzzled me!

Excellent :D. Couldn't find the exact variety online, but found enough info to know that I'm treating it right, and that those were flowers in the spring. Thanks, bboy! Janet

HA! That's pretty funny, mnktx. I went to a concert last night and ever since, "76 trombones in the big parade" has played in my head OVER and OVER, so they did it for you in advance. :-) If you're really interested in stuff like that (wasp eggs on caterpillars), you can follow the link below. Some folks at North Carolina State University's department of Entomology developed "a freaky tag-team of bugs" to eat kudzu, the vine that ate the South. Where I used to live, I watched a car parked at a garage get covered in kudzu in a matter of a couple weeks--it's beautiful, but it's the most aggressive plant I've ever seen. They didn't want the caterpillar to go nuts eating everything else, though, so they infected their caterpillars with an organic time bomb--wasp larvae in their backs which would eat them from the inside out. Poor caterpillars! Here is a link that might be useful: Freakish Bug Tag Team Article

The hitch-hiker looks like something from Crassulaceae family. If it's making pairs of opposite leaves, Crassula genus is likely. Once it gets some age in better light, it should become recognizable. Cute!