Monday morning early, with the sun high on a tall, tall pine tree in a neighbor’s yard and I, sitting on my back porch sipping a cup of coffee, saw six Cooper’s hawks at the top of the tree. I had never seen six Coopers at once. But there they were mapping out their food for their day and apportioning space.
Sunday evening we were delighted to see a hummingbird camp out for awhile on one of our hummer feeders. We set the feeders out two weeks ago and have been keeping our eye on them. I’m persuaded of this: You have to develop an “eye” for seeing them. Monday evening Kris saw a female hummer a few times taking a few dips in our feeders.
Kris followed all the advice that Fr. Rob Merola gave about using mini-feeders and it worked. Thanks to Rob.
Neither of us cares all that much about the Coopers — though one was found landing in our back yard Sunday evening and we had every intention of shooing it out of the yard. By the time we got to the door he was up and away. But, there’s nothing like a hummer.

PS: Our aging Bichon Frise, Webster, has become so well-known to the squirrels in our backyard that they don’t even more when he comes outside to take care of his business. They watch him just in case he suddenly acquires a dog-nature, but they’re now convinced he has no interest.