Squirrels

Slowly I am seeing more and more furry friends: cottontail, chipmunk and squirrels! A beautiful woodchuck is still around and at night there's a lone owl, hooting away. Last year its hoots were reciprocated but this year, it seems for naught, the messages are falling on a dark woods with no response. Two bird houses are at full capacity -- one with wrens, the other chickadees. I think the chickadees got there first because last year it was the wren's chosen spot.

Wren. It is so obvious that I'm being watched.

Weird Flies seem to be mating in the woody area

Please leave a comment if you can 

Identify this insect/ fly? It's on everything right now. This is Sassafras. But it's on Rhodies, etc. in western Ma.

Poison on Your Lawn

This morning two squirrels before 9:00 am. Put out critter food: corn, sunflower seed, peanuts. All the feeders are down and put away. Mass Dept. Of Wildlife guesses there may have been a virus that went through over winter or we had a proliferation of squirrels the year before from the bumper crop of acorns. Three years ago we had so many acorns that my son's car was damaged -- it looked like dough that someone had repeatedly stuck their finger into.  I'm hopeful as the months pass that I'll see more squirrels.
My concern is the prolific use of lawn pesticides being used everywhere for "green lawns." Alternative grasses, clovers, flowers, mosses, ferns, could populate spaces and poisons, because these chemicals are poison, could be curtailed. I wonder how long people spend thinking about what they're doing when they have their lawns treated? If they have one thought it is probably what they will pay for the treatment and not the cost to the environment or their own health. Squirrels bury their food in those lawns. Fireflies breed in them. There are homes that I pass where I need to hold my nose because the smell of chemicals is so strong. Leeching in the ground water, it is only a matter of time before you drink it.