What Now with the Fauna Around Here

Buddy Blacksnake, who I believe is not yet fully grown, has developed an interest in my house, because, after I ushered him away a few days ago, I saw him again two days later, sprawled across our front deck. This time I tried harder to grab him, but he had gotten wiser, and he quickly dropped to the ground and then under my woodpile. The woodpile is severely reduced in size, but I still didn't feel like taking it apart. When will be the next sighting of him, which Blacksnakes can be depended on to bring about, if no one hacks them with a hoe or some such? Who knows?

Contrary to my expectations, the cedar waxwings, or whatever they are, did not abandon the nest that they built along the top edge of my shed door. Instead they added some mud to attach it more tightly, and yesterday one flew out of it.

It's a good thing I haven't needed to go in that shed, which would do a job on that nest. I guess that door is a good place, because it might be like a sheer cliff face for a predator to have to climb. Or it would be if I hadn't put those decorative yellow strips on them a long time ago. I didn't anticipate this situation, but the birds complain -- though not verbally -- only if I get close.

It's been a great year for the whippoorwills. I hear one early nearly every evening. I have no way of knowing if it's the same one. But this one is loud and he's determined, going on with his call for minutes at a time without seeming to take a bird breath.

I don't think I heard them at all last year, and I wondered if something had happened to them.

Meanwhile I have never actually seen one, though one time one alighted on a section of the roof that is almost level with the rear windows of the upstairs bedroom, and from there it injected quite a few decibels directly into the house.  Also  I have never seen an owl, though hoot owls closely rival whippoorwills and distant train whistles for making some of my alltime favorite sounds, and there's no shortage of great sounds that can be heard around here, far superior to the incessant sirens of cities and the low roar of even such a non-industrial town as D.C.

I haven't seen any deer or signs of deer for several months, and the voles also seem to have lightened up. Maybe they're busy eating each other. That would work.

But soon it will be time for the Japanese beetles to emerge. Last year, for the first time in I don't know when, they hardly showed at all. The Rose of Sharons and I could easily go for another year without them, too. I hope somebody tells them that, though I know it is far too much to hope for.