medo,You are more than welcome to seeds,there will be plenty! Yes, Devin would love to have a praying mantis in the house....lol...but I am betting kitty would put an end to that real quick! I can just imagine your reaction when it moved....lol..... Monica,Thanks!I will have a talk with them....lol... Maggie ,so glad the pic help solve a mystery for you! :) Thanks so much for the compliments ,I may just look into a contest! :)

I live about a mile from the Withlacotchee state forest and we get all kinds of animal visitor but most of the seem to come around after dark and we don't get to see them. Just recently I found deer tracks in the side yard and something, most likely racoons, was messing around in the kiddy pool where I keep some extra bog plants. In the past we've seen deer, red and grey fox, coyote, black bear, hawks, barred owls, racoons, possum, armadillo, gopher toroise (had one in the yard this weekend), swallotailed kite, pileated woodpecker, and lots of smaller birds. Here's some of the things I've seen in the past. That last turtle was a bit of a surprise since it's a type that lives in water and I don't have any permanent bodies of water anywhere near me.

Maureen, I love both of those lizards! I can't remember if it's the fence lizard or another similar one where the males have turquoise sides in the breeding season. The first time I caught one for a closer look, I was astonished at the brilliant blue on the sides of its belly. I don't think it's visible all year, though. Kind of like the big ol' male skinks whose heads turn red in breeding season. Isn't Nature just marvelous? So many interesting little things living out their lives in our gardens and beyond. Marcia

I once saw a Ring-necked Pheasant in my yard and did a little searching to learn about it. Unfortunately, I learned that the pheasant wasn't wild here. I just found this Mass.gov site on Pheasant Hunting in Massachusetts. They say: "Ring-necked pheasants have been imported and released in Massachusetts since 1906. At that time the Massachusetts landscape was much different than it is today. The state was 80% open fields and pasture and 20% forested. Today, just the opposite is true. Pheasants prefer agricultural areas and open field habitats. As both forests and human development have increased, pheasant habitat has decreased. This is why there are only scattered occurrences of breeding pheasants in the state. For the most part, regulated pheasant hunting in Massachusetts relies on stocking of farm raised birds by MassWildlife into appropriate habitat. Pheasants are also stocked on other private and publicly owned lands by cooperating sportsmen's clubs who participate in what is known as the Club Pheasant Program. In this program sportsmens clubs raise birds (or cooperate with county correctional facilities for bird raising) then stock the birds during the pheasant season on lands open to the public. pheasant_stocking Over the past 15 years MassWildlife has annually stocked an average of 40,000 pheasants statewide." Claire