For the past couple of weeks an adult field sparrow has been appearing on my deck to dine around 7 PM daily where it steadily feeds for about 20 minutes if something does not pester it. A week ago, this sparrow was joined by a little friend. Now the two of them have been dining daily for their 15 to 20 minutes, then one flies up to the back of a chair, poses prettily for a moment or two, then flies off toward the Cumberland River. In a couple of minutes, the second bird imitates the first bird's performance, and I do not see them again until the following late afternoon. This morning, as I rolled the garbage can out to the street, two flickers flew up from my neighbor's yard. A third, seemingly juvenile, flicker remained behind "investigating" a cement block planter alongside the neighbor's house and finally moving along to a rock garden at the corner of the house and out of sight. I suspect it was finding ants as this neighborhood has had sort of a bumper crop of them lately. In the non-bird category, another neighbor reported that a "young deer" crossed the back corner of my lot late one recent afternoon, jumped a four foot fence into a neighbor's yard and disappeared behind that neighbor's house. The closest I have seen deer in the past has been a mile or so away near where Richland Creek enters the Cumberland River. A young opossum is making nightly visits to my house much to the glee of my male poodle, Beaujolais, who has "treed" him twice, once up the wall and once to the kitchen window sill. One early morning, it was still outside feeding after a rainy night. I had not let the dogs out, so the young 'possum paid me little mind. I got my camera and took pictures of it obligingly leaning across to lick peanut butter off the apple in the suet feeder, then moving forward to slurp up grape jelly from an orange half, and, finally, sitting up on its haunches raccoon-style "washing" its paws! I can't wait to get all those pictures back. I guess I had just never thought about it that 'possums "wash" their paws. Out of deference to "Poss", Beaujolais and Magnolia have now be relegated to leashes when I take them out on their OWN DECK at night. Dee Thompson Nashville, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================