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

MM, What a wonderful experience! As you have seen, the story that birds will abandon babies and nests if they smell humans is an old wive's tale. I have been fortunate to have bluebirds nest in my yard, and they will even tolerate a nest change when it has been extremely necessary. Some species are more wary than others, but most have a very poor sense of smell. I have found most of the songbirds that actually take care of their young (other than cowbirds) are actually very loyal to them. They will risk their own safety (to a point) to insure the babies' survival. Nature does bless them with enough sense to preserve their own life in extreme threats (like wasps) however. After all, baby songbirds have a 1 in 2 chance of making through the first year. It wouldn't make sense for the breeding pair to throw all caution to the wind and give up their own lives. They can always go on and raise another brood afterall.

Fantastic photos of the bluebirds and waxwings together. That is luck to see them together, let alone get a good photo. We have waxwings here all summer, but so often they are high up in trees, most people don't notice them. They like black cherries, and when i canoe the river i see them flycatching alot. And congrats newyorkrita on your bird garden paying off. Glad the Wentworths were well used, so many people report birds not touching the highbush cranberries. I saw cardinals picking at them once, but i think they were only after the pits inside. I may have to think about planting a Cardinal Candy viburnum. Winterberries - ive never had those last late in the year. I had a robin that would camp out until they were all gone, in December.

We had one nest here in southern Indiana, first we had nesting, nested in a black walnut tree. now we have a mystery of a nest with a small bird that we have not got a real close look at, 3 eggs, blue with black swirls about 10 ft off the ground in a apple tree. The cedar waxwings travel in flocks except when they are nesting