Dorothy, When I have big bites out of tomatoes that low to the ground, it often st turtles. The turtles we have here love tomatoes and will stand on their hind legs with their back feet on the ground and will eat tomatoes as high up as they can reach, and we have some huge turtles with shells about as big as a dinner plate, so they can reach surprisingly high into the plants. They use the tomato cage or the plant itself to brace themselves against as they eat the toamto. It also might be possums. At my house, it also could be Duke, our rottweiler-mix who loves tomatoes, whether green or red. I've only had deer close enough to the house to eat the hollyhocks in the front porch flower bed once this year, but they are coming closer every day. I've been putting out deer corn for the nursing moms and the ones with young fawns the last couple of weeks, but I put that pretty far from the house. I know the deer are getting desperate because they are letting themselves be seen in the side yard between the woods and the house even in the middle of the day. I have to watch carefully if I go into the side yard on the north side of the house during the day or I find myself too uncomfortably close to deer. You know they are hungry, too, because instead of looking at me, freezing, and then turning and running, they look at me, stomp their feet and snort air out their nostrils, which I interpret as them telling me to "go away" (and I do back away and go back inside). I don't know what they are trying to eat on the north side of the house. All I have there is southern wax myrtle, purple wintercreeper, wisteria and Virginia creeper. My apple-growing neighbor who lives about 1/2 mile from us as the crow flies and is right on the river so has abundant deer keeps them away from his apple trees by putting a radio in the tree and playing it at night. The deer won't touch those apple trees when the radio is on, but they'll wipe out the garden that is a few feet away. He puts it in a ziplock bag to keep the moisture out. Susan, That's too bad about the sunflowers. When my sunflowers topple over in storms, as long as enough of the root is in the ground, I leave them there. They look awful, but the blooms still are useful to the wildlife. We've had one blooming about 2 weeks now, and now a second one is blooming. Not many even sprouted this year and most of them were eaten, likely by deer, before they had a chance to get very big. That's great that your plant started blooming after the rain. Sometimes it is amazing how much even a little rain helps. We had more rainfall overnight, so our 2-day rain total now is 0.20". Pathetic, but better than 0.0". Dawn

Whoa! Thanks for sharing all those wonderful photos! I would give myself points if I so much as glimpsed many of those species, much less photographing them. Now we can visit your own website (via the link in your My Page) to see all your latest captures and I wish you the best with your continuing photography ventures

Such brilliant colors. I've only ever seen one in my lifetime. Maybe this year I'll see some more. Thanks for sharing.

It's a male Summer Tanagers; the ones here are just getting yellow patches. Here is one I photographed at 10:15 this morning on top of Poppy Mnt From 6-5-09, birds