Oh Masha! What a great service you offer us here at the OGR Forum. Your photography is absolutely stunning! I have taken the bait, will be purchasing Rosette Delizy this year! Can't stand not having this rose now that I've seen what she has done in your garden. Absolutely beautiful coloring! Thanks so much for sharing! I am forever grateful for your contribution to this gallery. Audrey

I'm on two acres in semi-rural central Massachusetts, bordering conservation land (wetlands). This is the first time I've thought about itemizing what I've seen in my four years, here. It's a long list, and I'm sure it's just a fraction! We have a pond, and keep half the property meadow. (Maybe, by some standards, the whole thing is a meadow....) I've been putting up birdhouses, lately. We see (in rough order of how interesting...) great blue herons, red tail hawks, egrets, a large flock of cedar waxwings, redwing blackbirds, barn sparrows (how do they know it's a barn?), downy/hairy/piliated/red-breasted woodpeckers, orioles, juncos, nuthatches, and the usual finches, bluejays, cardinals, yadda yadda yadda. A wood duck down the road, and I wish he'd visit. Spring peepers (I can't wait for them to come back!), leopard frogs, other various frogs and toads, garter/ribbon/maybe milk snakes, 4-toed salamanders. Turtles nearby, but not at my pond. In the pond, various snails, leeches, more frogs, infinite insects (especially mosquitoes). In the orchard, every pest an apple tree has ever known. Mice, groundhogs, rabbits, grey squirrels, flying squirrels, chipmunks. Coyotes, foxes, deer. Neighbors have seen a bear and reportedly minks, but not me. Beavers have us surrounded, but they are not my own yard. Some lovely spiders, and some plain ones too. Lots of paper wasps and various bees. More mosquitoes. In fact, mostly, we have mosquitoes. And worms. --Jonathan

Thanks everybody, we love to share our birds here. :) Konrad and renee - Yes, this is our beloved Redbud tree. It's very close to the deck and provides countless ever-changing perches for us to shoot our birds thruout the year. Rachel - We have "regulars" of many different species here which we recognize as individuals. Lots of them are mating pairs who've kinda claimed our little habitat as their territory, and raise their families here year after year. We do think of these birds as family, and most especially our Bluebirds. :) Donna - Many of our Bluejays and Goldfinches leave over the winter, tho we do see a few of each year-round. The Goldies get very pale olive/grey then, but they return in much greater numbers and it's always great to see them all getting golden again this time of year. Kenn

That is different from my experience. In my compost pile, I regularly see bluejays, ravens, and crows. Last summer I had moles in an almost finished pile, probably looking for worms. And I know I have nocturnal visitors from the evidence they leave: a bent wire fence, footprints in the snow, evidence of a bit of digging, or a tuft of fur left on the fence. (Edited to add photo.) IME the deer, chipmunks, turkey, and squirrels aren't interested in what's in the pile because the food is wrong for what they like, but scavengers are. In winter when the snow is deep, I don't see visitors other than birds, I think because most animals stay in a smaller home area when moving through snow makes them use up too much energy. But when deep snow isn't an issue, I've seen evidence of the coyotes, fox (one summer when she was raising kits nearby), and one memorable time I hope not to have repeated, a bear left fur on a very squashed fence. In city areas I know rats can sometimes be an issue, but they haven't been in my rural area. So some of your critters probably have other foods they prefer, but I don't know why your pile is undisturbed in times without deep snow.