Thank you terramadre! I would have loved to have seen the moth. Beautiful!

Do you have to use a tripod? I have a 70-200 VR (same as your IS) but I think if I use the teleconverter, I'll have to use a tripod. We have baby Robins in a tree in our backyard and I'd love to try and get some pics this weekend. Don't know if I can though because they're pretty high up. We saw one of the parents fly in with food tonight and could see their little heads bobbing around.

Because the nest was badly disturbed and its cover removed, mother mouse may have moved her babies. (Cat move litters at times, too.) Since the cover was removed, a predator may have gotten them. I'm assuming these are mice. They are not voles. Voles have a more pointed snoot and it tends to be hairless, or covered with very short hair. Baby squirrels and rats look very much alike. Both newborns are practically hairless, but squirrel bqbies are larger. When older a squirrel's tail will be coverd with hair and a rat's tail is bare. Most self respecting squirrels nest in trees and the upper parts of buildings. Squirrels have been known to invade attics of houses. (I had one such invasion, and so did my neighbor. Red squirrels are trhe worst - chewed a hole in my neighbor's roof.) Squirrels prefer a nest up high. A rat loves buildings and will nest at any elevation in a building or structure. Voles are burrow dwellers. Typically, they like to burrow next to a foundation of a building. Ground squirrels dwell in burrows much like a chipmunk. The main difference is that ground squirrels are larger. Our native ground squirrels have 13 lines on their backs, and are called 13 line ground squirrels. Around here, cats go after both chipmunks and ground squirrels. Our ground squirrels have lost the batttle to ferral cats, but somehow, a few wily chipmunks have survived. Chipmunks and ground squirrels are food for coyotes and foxes, too.

Altorama -- Some of the roses (and other plants) in the Sacramento Historic Cemetery survived the intervening century and a half -- but as families moved away (or died out) no one was left to tend the plots in the Garden Cemetery. By the beginning of the 90's, the place was a disaster. Dedicated plant people re-planted this cemetery, with roses collected across California -- Thank Fred Boutin, for one . . . So, today, there is a Historic Rose Garden, but there are other gardens there, as well. Native Plants, Perennials . . . And a few roses DID survive from the 1860's -- they call them "Legacy Plants." I am particularly fond of "Elisabeth's China." (Elisabeth Stober, born in Germany, died in Sacramento in the 1880's. Her rose has been cut to the ground multiple times, but it yet survives: Any city could do this -- with enough dedication and work.