A few random jottings:

We had a hawk for much of the winter, and I'm happy to report that there are many fewer rabbits around this year. I see only 2 or 3 adults around, whereas last year there must have been 6 or more. Consequently, my young shrubs survived this winter and are finally filling in the hedgerow I planted two years ago.

There had been no woodchuck in the old abandoned woodchuck hole for several years, but now it's inhabited again. I was praying it was a male, but now I've seen at least two babies. I can report that woodchucks adore boltonia (seems to be their absolute favorite), woodland sunflowers (but not downy sunflower), liatris, several species of asters, echinacea, and rudbeckia. They don't eat prairie grasses, milkweeds, penstemons, monarda of any species, ditto goldenrod, NJ tea, queen of the prairie, culver's root, or ironweed. In the woodland garden they eat asters but not lobelia, columbines, bloodroot, dicentra, ginger, early meadowrue, geraniums, anemone, etc.

They are not afraid of my dog--they figured out very quickly how long her chain is, and they don't care how much she barks at them (she barks at them like crazy, being a very stupid dog). They certainly don't care how much dog hair you deposit around your plants.

They seem to stay in specific areas--for example, they ate my neighbor's parsley, which is in the back yard, but not mine, which is on the side of the house toward the front yard. And the asters on the side and front are fine. They avoid anything, even boltonia, that's planted very close to milkweed. And they prefer pure stands of plants--more efficient eating, I guess--so by spreading things around I've managed to save some boltonia, asters, woodland sunflowers, etc.

Oh, and chipmunks don't seem to do any damage at all, except for eating some strawberries. (I assume the bites are chipmunks and rabbits.) They dog lots of holes in the prairie garden, but I see absolutely no damage, even in recent transplants.