Susan, I'm mostly seeing Sulphurs, which we have in great profusion here, and also a few Question Marks and Commas. I haven't seen any Red Admirals yet, but we had a billion of them last year so I'm sure I'll see some before too long. We have a small handful of native wildflowers blooming, and the orange tree was blooming for the last 2 or 3 weeks but it is finished now. We have had high temps in the upper 70s a couple of times lately, and all the little flying critters came out of the woodwork like crazy on those days. On the day we hit 78 degrees, red wasps were out. We have the most honey bees I've ever seen out and about in January, and I hope that is a sign that the honey bee population is healthy and abundant this year. Helen, If I forget and leave cat food on the porch after dark, we have a steady stream of visitors, including armadillos, possums and coons coming to eat it. I try to remember to bring in the food at night so we don't encourage these varmints to hang around close to the house. We just have too much wildlife here. Last night I stepped out onto the back porch to call the cat who had not yet come indoors for the night, and there were three deer standing about 15 or 20' from the porch. I think they were coming to the side yard to eat any bird seed that the birds had dropped from the bird feeder to the ground. All the wildlife here is so hungry and has a hard time finding food they like at this time of the year. We have a yard full of cottontail rabbits every night. I'm not sure if they're eating bird seed or maybe the winter rye grass. Dawn

Finally saw our first waxwings this week in our blueberries. To me, the arrival of waxwings in southern Il seems strange. I associate the waxwing as a northern bird. However, they don't arrive here till mid June and stay sometimes two or three months before disappearing. Most birds migrate through here much earlier and stay a month at the most. We also are enjoying our towhee every single day as he visits the ground surrounding our feeders. I only see one though. We are fortunate to have loads of cardinals; and, yesterday, he spent a good half hour chasing one particular female around. I think the poor lovelorn thing must be getting desperate. Finally, our summer tanagers are back, and I have been blessed with some real close encounters with them. They like to hang out at our red raspberries and blackberries and have a very unique vocalization.

Those little birds are so adorable. & be on the alert: In spring, they get "drunk" on fermenting berries (I forget what kind of plant), & land on the ground, reeling, easy game for any predator. All they need is a safe haven until they sober up!

Owls - it might bite the bird and not be able to keep hold of it to eat.