My cats love to watch out windows. Molly thinks the bathroom window is her own private bird-viewing platform, and she wants it open in all weather. (You can probably guess that winter is her least favorite season, because that window stays CLOSED most of the time, lol.) B.C. likes windows, but doesn't want to be outside. If he DOES get out (and a door closes behind him), he cries until he gets back into the house. I think Sophia would be happy to be outside, but she doesn't try to get out. When the weather is nice I let them out on the tiny back deck and stairs, and I sit with them so they don't wander. I'm sure if any mouse was foolish enough to get into the house, it wouldn't last long. We don't have a problem with many critters, but I've thought that a dog might help with the woodchuck issue we've had in the past. Our neighbor's outdoor cat occasionally leaves us a mole as a gift. Sophia, the grand dame of the house. B.C. (Bad Cat) and Sophia, in their favorite bird-viewing spot - the feeders are outside that window. B.C. is almost 13, and Sophia is 11. My favorite picture of Molly, and our son Ian. Molly is the baby, not yet 2. Sophia thinks she's a pain in the behind; we jokingly call Molly "Nermal," to go with Sophia's "Garfield," and B.C. does a very good "Odie." Laurel

Moles are not generally herbivores. They eat insects and insect larva (grubs), beetles, and earthworms. They burrow deep down in the ground, make their nest there, but come up close to the surface to forage for bugs and worms, esp. after a rain shower, as the insects and worms will be on the move at that time and the soil is softer. Moles can damage plants and grass by all those maizes of tunneling, but they are not the ones eating your roses or veggies. Gopher, rats, mice, voles, rabbits and rats have large front teeth, made for gnawing and chewing plants and seeds and nuts. They love tender sweet roots of young seedlings (and the tops too). Roses are of the same family as apples and strawberries and these they find very yummy. My rabbit loves me to give him fresh snippets of the tender tips of rose bushes. He loves them. Rabbits will eat your blueberries to the ground. I lost all my blueberry bushes to cottontails. (Bad Peter, Bad Benjamin!) They will also chew on young trees. Now if I ever get blueberries again, I will enclose them with cages until they grow to some size. Below, I have added a link to a website all about Moles and Shrews, including a number of ghastly traps and methods used to attempt the get rid of them. ----------------------------------------------- Planting daffodils around your tulips is not just for aesthetic purposes. Tulips are edible, even for humans, but Daffodils are poisonous. Dutch bulb growers learned that by planting Daffodils in with their Tulips or rows of Daffies flanking them, helped deter rodents and other animals. I planted 2 Peruvian Daffodils (Spider Lilies) a few days ago. I planted them by my day lilies to ward off rodents. Thought the frilly creamy white spidery flowers would look terrific next to the colorful day lilies. Nothing on the package indicated that it was 'tender'. I looked them up on the Internet last night, and turns out they are VERY tender. Although we may think of Peru as mostly a cold mountainous region, this daffodil comes from the tropical forests in the hot, moist valleys far below. Well, Bugger me! I gotta go dig 'em up now, and sink them in pots out in the greenhouse before they freeze their little round bottoms off! ~SweetAnnie4u Here is a link that might be useful: Moles & Shrews

Oh...I have lots! The Seagulls and Turns, they are fun to watch and I love to hear them. The Sandpipers...they are so darn cute. The Purple Martins, although I wish they ate more sandflies from above the yard instead of the lake, the noises they make when they get back to the house are great! The Hummingbirds. The robins nesting in my Japanese Quince, especially after seeing one of them chase off a field mouse. The mockingbird or cat bird that learned the entire sequence of a car alarm-although it can get old, lol. The Cedar Waxwings, especially watching them hover to grab a bug. The gold finches...so tiny and cute! Not so sure about the chipmunk...cute...but he or she better stick to seed heads and stay out of the Cottage! Same for the squirrels, and watching them hang upside down off of the feeder mitigates my dislike for them eating so much of the seed. The grackels are far bigger pigs, imo. The toads. The butterflies...although the monarachs seem a bit bossy. Most especially the clear wing hummingbird moths, those are so fun to watch and not nearly as nervous as the hummingbirds themselves! The cardinals and chickadees...I love the little chick a dee dee dee song.

Thanks for the replies. For what it's worth, I went with a Primos TruthCam 35 which has been reasonably good. To get better footage, I'd probably need to dedicate more power to the endeavor. (In trying to prolong battery charge, I've sacrificed trigger speed, so I get a lot of tail ends.)