The black squirrels I saw were descendants of two pairs imported from Japan as breeding pairs for a lakeside cottage property back in the 1800s. The main group is in a fairly small area but ever so often one will show up in the general population of grey squirrels. The greys accept them with no problems. Obviously there was some cross over. There is sometimes talk of eliminating them from the summer visitors but the permanent residents object and the talk goes away for a while. After a hundred years it is probably not going to happen. Sandy

Eric, last summer early in the morning about 8am I heard my Tabby cat growling and looking out the front door. Sure enough, there was a turkey walking around and pecking at stuff in the ground, just muttering to herself. I thought I had heard turkeys in the back meadows, but this one decided to take a stroll out in the open. I'm rural, so we get lots of wildlife...last nite the coyotes were running through the backyard and howling, but you're pretty much in the city limits, aren't you? Hopefully you'll get to see more turkeys. I was hoping mine would stick around and eat lots of JBs, but no such luck. -terry

Finally, I saw my first Rose Breasted Grosbeak (male) on my feeder today. My sister saw one a couple of weeks ago, about 2 miles from me. The one I saw stuck around all day. Maybe he'll be back tomorrow. Tried to get a photo, but a car scared him off, just as I was about to snap the pic! :( Jan

I know what you mean about the butterflies being skittish, Sandy! I don't know how on earth you got that great picture of the leafwing - they've been practically impossible for me to photograph. And I'm so jealous of you having mourning cloaks - 'so beautiful! I've been out a lot today, because the sun came out for the first time in several days. There are a good many butterflies flying right now - I saw several pipevine swallowtails, a palamedes swallowtail, a cloudless sulphur, a sleepy orange, a giant swallowtail, a red-banded hairstreak, and my first tiger swallowtail of the year, a smallish male. There is a part of my property that's sunny and grassy - there used to be a lot of loblolly pines there, but Katrina got them. I'm planting more trees in the area, but it's still sunny. Anyway, there are jillions of little carolina satyrs there, also some little bitty orange colored ?butterflies/moths? that fly CONSTANTLY, never stopping to bask or nectar, at least not that I've ever seen. I think the most likely ID for them would be little metalmarks, the only metalmark in the southeastern U.S. The host plant is supposed to be yellow thistles, and they've fully leafed out, tall, and blooming - I saw a pipevine swallowtail nectaring on a flower on one this morning. Anybody know anything about little metalmarks of the southeast or metalmarks in general? Do they fly constantly close to the ground? About the only way I could get a picture of them would be to make a movie on my camera, which only makes movies that last no more than about 10 seconds. I may try that. Sherry