Urban Wildlife

The pileated woodpecker has not made a return visit when I was watching, but all the usual suspects--cardinals, titmice, chickadees--have been present in abundance. The year's first bumblebee made an appearance last week (on a pot of torenia, of all things!), and the little pond in the sunken garden has proven to be home to a VERY noisy crew of spring peepers (and, I fear, mosquitoes--must get a new pump). Unusual birdsong that I can't identify has been heard in the neighborhood's taller trees, making me think that the arboretum is a way station on the spring warbler migration. Of course, the little darlings are nowhere that I can see them, even with my (cheap) binoculars (with which I am not very skilled), but it's good to know that the neotropical migrants are still migrating.

On this morning's walk, blue jays were collecting nest-building materials, and swallows were swooping around the bridges and the boats at the river museum. Then, a semi-tailless squirrel made its way across the river trail--Marietta's own version of our dearly-missed Stumpy.

Hoping for hummingbirds next.