My wildlife visitors are either too far away or too quick on the wing for photos, so you'll have to use imagination instead:). Along the back of the yard stand several black cherry trees, whose fruit has been ripening in stages all month. The primary consumers are robins, with an occasional cardinal or oriole dropping by. I allowed the self-sown catnip along the vegetable garden paths to grow this year, as well as some alongside the deck, and observe the seed stalks being visited by groups of goldfinches. Suddenly I realize why the single plant from 20 years ago is now all over our acre! Red bee balm is planted in a whiskey barrel by the deck and is patronized by the hummingbirds every year. The other day, as I sat under a shade canopy on the deck, a female hummer zipped into view, pausing at a day lily blossom, then flew in between the deck posts and hovered about three feet away from me for 5-6 seconds, before flying off. I was wearing a muumuu made from very vividly colored floral fabric--including life size red hibiscus blossoms--so I surmise she was taking a closer look before deciding they weren't the real thing! The same day, I saw a pair of song sparrows apparently courting--lots of flying around after one another, culminating in some activity partly concealed by maple leaves--"what IS that male doing, just sitting there and--oops!" as the female suddenly flew out from behind the leaves and the male took off after her again. You can draw your own conclusions, LOL. And last but not least, robins nested in the white ash tree by my study window for the second year in a row. That particular tree grows clusters of witches' brooms along its branches, which seem ideal for concealing a nest. The day before the eggs hatched, the male aggressively drove off a squirrel which was thinking about climbing the trunk--after a couple of dive-bombing runs, he thought better of it...

My blues have been around all winter. Have been feeding them. I have 3 boxes. HOSP started building a nest early in one box. I took it out and put fishing line along each side of the entrance hole. They came back a couple of times, but don't like the fishing line at all. I haven't seen them at the box at all. My blues have started building a nest in another box. Almost done I think. She has been busy. I had a pair of wrens last year and they laid eggs in a box (before I could do anything about it ) after a blue had an unsuccessful attempt in the same box. (the blue didnt sit on the eggs, they were not viable). The wren didn't sit on her eggs either. I waited a long time. They never hatched. Kind of strange. Haven't seen the wrens yet this year.

Thank you all! I am not exactly sure but since I am in CO I think they are Western BB. Yah, they are the fledglings from the 1st brood. At one time, 4 fledglings (never saw all 5 them together) and parents were at the feeding time, all tried to bring mealworms to the nestbox, quite a traffic jam. Sometimes a fledgling would bring a mealworm in, then comes out with the same mealworm, so apparently they are not quite a skilled caregiver yet. Below is a fledgling checking the nestbox. The same BB pair has come for the last 3 years. I know they are the same because they know the where the mealies are right away, even when I place the bowel inside the "jail house" feeder. Until next year :-)

As I wrote in my post, my reference was to domestic cats, not to feral or barn cats who live their lives without being fed or receiving immunizations, deworming, external parasite prevention, and other routine veterinary care. I have precise first hand knowledge of what species my cats have killed over the past 40+ years and a good idea of how many of each because they bring their quarry home to my front porch and, being well fed, only occasionally do they eat one of their game animals. I could probably count on my fingers the number of birds my cats have killed over the past decades, and among these were a few English sparrows. I would say that on average 6 to 11 baby barn swallows have fledged from nests on our front porch and eaves of the barn each year, despite the presence of our cat(s.) The parent bird who fell victim this year is the only swallow killed by one of our cats ever, so I'd say that the survival rate is highly stacked in favor of the swallows. (Seven on average x 40 some years is a large sum of swallows that have come into being on my felines' terrain.) Toxoplasma gondii only poses a threat to developing fetuses and those with severely compromised immune systems. It is important that pregnant women avoid contact with litter boxes. Other than this caution, the risks posted on the inflammatory website you posted are highly exaggerated. As I also stated, this is a moot point since my current kitty has only perhaps another year of going outdoors and I do not intend to replace her when she is gone. We will have to agree to disagree on this point.