I did order the alligator. Probably won't do any good. It's actually a 3-piece alligator that move "lifelike" in the pond. Kind of creepy actually. Will probably scare the grandkids more than the birds. My pond is not really big. There is a very small upper pond with no fish that flows into a short stream and the lower pond is not much larger, and similar shape, to a grand piano. It's right off my deck and patio. We've had it for 15+ years and never had a problem until we took down those trees. I am hoping that due to the small size of the pond the bird would not want to dive in with that floating object in there, even though it may not know what it is. A floating island probably would have served the purpose and would have been chepaer and not so scary. It's too early here to get plants due to cold weather. I will leave the net on for a few weeks and see if more plants and the alligator do the trick.

I've been over to Dan's and it's beautiful, especially the rock garden area which wasn't even completely done when I was there. Dan, do you have any more TALL canna to trade? I took a few pieces of the green leaf orange flower last year and they did OK but never got as tall as I would have liked (I'm trying a new location next year). I'd really like something that has huge hot pink or red flowers. Tropicana was outstanding. Not all of the pieces flowered, but the leaves kept their nice color in the partly sunny area I put them in. Larry

What are you feeding them? Ours like BOSS even though we have a couple suet feeders. As for the pileateds, we have seen them occasionally in our area----and have heard them even more--but have yet to draw them in. Last night, we had 4 male rose breasted grosbeaks, three females, and our first hummingbirds and orioles. Still waiting on the indigos.

My only feeder is a hummingbird feeder, and we get good numbers of them every day. Since the crows arrived in our neighborhood in large numbers over 10 years ago, our other birds have really diminished in population. I used to have so many doves in our yard and on our fencetop daily, but they are rarely spotted here anymore. We would have so many doves on our fence that I was reminded of Alfred Hitchkock's move The Birds. They will show up with some of the other birds when our Liquid Amber trees drop their pods and the seeds sprinkle all over. Those must be some tastey seeds!