As I was just now watching from the kitchen window as a Thrasher bathed, I saw a Pileated Woodpecker pop out from the backside of the large oak tree next to the water bowl. He hopped backwards down the tree for a couple feet, then a hummingbird buzzed him and he moved back around the tree. After several seconds back to the front where he hopped backwards down the tree again. I thought he might be headed for the water, but instead flew across the yard to a dying mulberry tree and started to tap on it. It's been several years since I've seen a Pileated here (although I heard one a couple months ago calling down in the woods.) I think that was the closest I've ever seen one.

I was out last evening and had several hummingbirds going to my four 0 clocks. They are bold little things that don't seem to get along with each other. There was lots of twittering and chasing and zooming by. You would think they would be afraid of a big bird but I guess they are used to fighting and dive bombing and making a get away.

Sounds like you see some very interesting and lovely birds, Dorothy! Being in the city, I don't see as much variety. I have had House Finches for years. I grow Sunflowers for them and the hummingbirds love them, too - they get their protein from the small insects that like the flowers. Sunflowers are a versatile wildlife plant. The finches get the seeds; the butterflies and bees get their nectar, the hummers get their insect diet; and other birds get a perch.

The other day a hummer went after a locust. I could see and hear the locust buzzing and buzzing more loudly than usual. I looked up and a hummer was chasing him around the yard, chattering loudly at it. It was too funny!

I love all the wildlife and the fact that I can bring a bit of it into my city yard, is most satisfying.

Susan

Dorothy, Last year we had the most different kinds of woodpeckers here that I've ever seen. This year I've barely seen any.

Helen, Every year we have a handful of hummers who each seem to lay claim to one specific feeder and try to defend it from the other hummers. Apparently they can be quite territorial.

Susan, It is so odd that you mentioned seeing a hummer going after a locust. I had that happen yesterday and today, and if I've ever noticed it before, I don't remember it.

We always had plentiful wildlife in our city yard in Fort Worth, but we had oodles of gardening neighbors, and many of them were the age of my parents and they had tons of well-established passalong plants that nowadays would be called heirlooms.

One of the hardest things about living in the country is not that you have to try very hard to attract wildlife----you have to try to avoid attracting the wrong kinds of wildlife. I seem to be really good at attracting the kind of wildlife that 99.99% of Americans don't want in their yards.

Dawn

Helen, so true about hummers. My Dad used to put up 3 quart feeders on his front porch every day. There would be so many out there that you couldn't talk for their noise. And some of the males were very territorial. Dad gave up feeding them last year. It got to be too expensive. I have been filling my one pint feeder every couple days for over ten years and never see more than 5 or 6 and that usually at the end of the season so I think some are young.

Susan, we have selfseeding sunflowers that have been coming up around the garden and orchard for years. It is amazing to me how little water they need. We don't water them, but they are still blooming and they are huge--7 and 8 ft tall with lots of branchs and small flowers.

Dawn, like you we live in the country and try not to attract some forms of wildlife. Haven't killed a copperhead this year and that's unusual. The deer have come as close as the orchard recently, saw droppings. But so far they haven't come to the apple trees. Hope they don't because it is semidwf and all the apples are at about 4 ft off the ground. And in the garden something is eating the Brandywines that are still on the tomatoes from about knee height down. Not birds, they're taking good sized bites out of them.

Dorothy, my Sunflowers seeded from a bird mix and they are the tall - 7 or 8 footers - many branching variety, with smaller flowers - probably 4 to 5". They have been reseeding now for the past 4 or 5 years. I allow two groups to reseed together, and the rest get mowed down.

An unfortunate thing happened in the storm we had last night. One stand of the Sunflowers lost their battle to remain upright. They may come back from the cut stems or roots, but I still have the same number of hummers and insects, and birds, frequenting the single, very lonely now, stand.

We badly needed this rain so I'm not complaining. My Porterweed had stopped blooming entirely, but this morning, I had numerous blooms awaiting me in the garden. Porterweed is a very strange growing plant. The spikes that contain the blooms are very long - up to 2-3', and the plant looks like a purple version of Medusa. Hummingbirds and butterflies love the blooms. Anyway, I digress. The plant had stopped blooming about a week ago. I don't know if it was the heat or what. I finally decided to cut off some of the spikes thinking maybe it was just too overloaded with them. After the storm last night, they have rebloomed, with lots of tiny blooms in clusters on the spikes. So I don't know if it was the storm that triggered the blooms, or the cutting back I did 2 days ago. Maybe both.

I'm attaching a photo of the bloom spike with Gulf Frit nectaring.

Susan

Dorothy, When I have big bites out of tomatoes that low to the ground, it often st turtles. The turtles we have here love tomatoes and will stand on their hind legs with their back feet on the ground and will eat tomatoes as high up as they can reach, and we have some huge turtles with shells about as big as a dinner plate, so they can reach surprisingly high into the plants. They use the tomato cage or the plant itself to brace themselves against as they eat the toamto. It also might be possums. At my house, it also could be Duke, our rottweiler-mix who loves tomatoes, whether green or red.

I've only had deer close enough to the house to eat the hollyhocks in the front porch flower bed once this year, but they are coming closer every day. I've been putting out deer corn for the nursing moms and the ones with young fawns the last couple of weeks, but I put that pretty far from the house. I know the deer are getting desperate because they are letting themselves be seen in the side yard between the woods and the house even in the middle of the day. I have to watch carefully if I go into the side yard on the north side of the house during the day or I find myself too uncomfortably close to deer. You know they are hungry, too, because instead of looking at me, freezing, and then turning and running, they look at me, stomp their feet and snort air out their nostrils, which I interpret as them telling me to "go away" (and I do back away and go back inside). I don't know what they are trying to eat on the north side of the house. All I have there is southern wax myrtle, purple wintercreeper, wisteria and Virginia creeper.

My apple-growing neighbor who lives about 1/2 mile from us as the crow flies and is right on the river so has abundant deer keeps them away from his apple trees by putting a radio in the tree and playing it at night. The deer won't touch those apple trees when the radio is on, but they'll wipe out the garden that is a few feet away. He puts it in a ziplock bag to keep the moisture out.

Susan, That's too bad about the sunflowers. When my sunflowers topple over in storms, as long as enough of the root is in the ground, I leave them there. They look awful, but the blooms still are useful to the wildlife. We've had one blooming about 2 weeks now, and now a second one is blooming. Not many even sprouted this year and most of them were eaten, likely by deer, before they had a chance to get very big.

That's great that your plant started blooming after the rain. Sometimes it is amazing how much even a little rain helps.

We had more rainfall overnight, so our 2-day rain total now is 0.20". Pathetic, but better than 0.0".

Dawn