I wish I were better at capturing animals in photographs; unfortunately, they're not as cooperative as plants about holding still. Perhaps my favorite photo-I-didn't-get was a chipmunk on the front stoop, practically nose-to-nose with Mirabel the Menace, in her youth the most mischievous of our cats. By the time the camera is out of its case, the creature is generally gone. Sigh.
We've had our share of wildlife this summer, not only the skunk that did pose for photographs and the chipmunk that didn't, but the fawn that exploded out of the meadow garden, Stumpy, our regular visitor, butterflies of all shapes and sizes, and the usual assortment of sparrows, finches, chickadees, titmice, cardinals, nuthatches, wrens, and woodpeckers. We also had what may have been our first hawk, perched on the feeder pole and surveying the yard (and of course, not catching anything that way). It may have been the same bird I saw a few blocks away later in the week: that time, the bird, possibly a juvenile red-tailed hawk, was standing in the middle of Plum Street, only flying away when I moved closer to get a better look. I suspect that an adult hawk with more experience would not have found the street a good place to look for food.
The front-yard liatris has proven to be a butterfly magnet, and butterfly brains (if they have them--Biology 101 was a LONG time ago) are so small that the insects don't seem to process me as potential danger. Of course, I'm much too large to be taken for a bird or a spider, so maybe butterflies are smarter than I'm giving them credit for.
This skipper (possibly a fiery skipper?) went about its business unconcernedly last evening, allowing me to snap several pictures.
Squirrels are a different matter. If you look in the lower right corner of this photo, you will see a black squirrel running away. 
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