Susan, Oh, I definitely have tobacco and tomato hornworms every year and lots of them, but they just ignore the tomato plants almost all the time. I recognize them well, having dealt with them all my life in Texas. They used to devour my dad's tomato plants until he planted 4 o'clocks near them. They devour the neighbors' tomato plants but not mine. I am not sure where the credit should go--but likely the borage, four o'clocks and other companion plants are either repelling the hornworms or attracting beneficial insects that prey upon them. One of my neighbors did tell me he thinks the reason I don't have hornworms on the tomato plants and pepper plants has got to be because I don't spray pesticides that kill off the beneficials, because our gardens grow very similarly in other respects but he sprays broad-spectrum pesticides so has more pest problems. (Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, though he sprays less now than he used to.) We do have the sphinx moths/cats that you find on Virginia Creeper and Trumpet Creeper vines, but just not in large numbers. With acres and acres of Virginia Creeper in the woodlands, I am sure there's a lot of them that we don't see since there is so much food available. The Virginia Creeper near the house rarely has pest issues but will have an occasional hornworm. We also have whatever it is that eats pentas and I cannot keep pentas alive if I leave them uncovered, so I have pretty much stopped planting them. I love pentas, but there is not a lot of point in planting ornamentals that get eaten back to the ground in mere days after the cats find them. They aren't very ornamental when they are just stubs of plants right above the soil line. We also have something that eats the brugmansia leaves, particularly early in the spring. It looks like it is going to be a great moth and butterfly year here. We have dozens and dozens of moths flocking to the porch lights every evening, and lots of butterfly and bee activity all day every day. The butterfly population still consists mostly of sulphurs so far, and we have tons of them here every year---both the really big ones and the small ones. Dawn

Sometimes it is too easy to get into the glass-half-full thought pattern and assume that things with the state of the environment are only getting worse, not better. When I step back and consider that there probably hasn't been an eagle nest anywhere in this county for the last 50 years or so, maybe more, then it comes as a much welcome reminder of just how resilient nature is despite our intrusions. Yesterday I called the regional DNR as well as the local office who oversees this particular reclamation area, and found out that there is indeed a fellow responsible for confirming and recording eagle sightings. He was given the location of the nest and I guess the rest is up to our feathered pair. It's only about a mile and a half from here so I have it MADE for watching them. My next purchase will have to be a spotting scope!!! I had a very encouraging 15 minute talk with the site superintendent...I have always had a love/hate relationship with the DNR. Despite the fact that I am nearly surrounded by thriving DNR natural areas that were once barren coal mines,I have had no choice but to question their motives behind the work--is it to maintain the environment for wildlife or to maintain the wildlife for hunters? To my surprise, this fellow voiced this very issue without my ever having mentioned it, and his concerns were the same as my own. I knew the previous director for several years before he relocated and the discussion with this new guy left me very reassured that things might be in fairly good hands here locally.

After consultation, I've decided the sparrows are only a smaller, lighter subspecies of the large reddish Song Sparrows with double wing bars that are common around here. Too bad..thought they were Lincoln's. But they could have been migrating through anyway

Since DDT was banned, the eagles have returned. It took a long time for the poisons to purge out of the Great Lakes, but now eagles may be seen often along the shores of the Great Lakes. They like to scout for dead fish on the shore, but sometimes they will go after ducks in the river. I have a lot of information about the return of eagles, peregrine falcons and ospreys in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes. Eagles have returned to other regions of the U.S. and Canada as well. Here is a link that might be useful: The Dynamic Great Lakes