Back in the blog

Well, I had completely forgotten this hastily crafted blog but rediscovered it accidentally, thanks to the magic of technology, when I posted to Craig Huegel's wonderfully informative Hawthorne Hill blog. Craig is a wildlife biologist and native plant guru much loved in the Florida native plant community. He has the kind of knowledge and interests that were I a wealthy philanthropist, I'd surely endow -- endless studies of plant-animal-insect interactions, that sounds like a foundation to me. I'll have to settle for reading his blog, buying his books, and best of all, the opportunity to talk with him now and then.

We have not seen our box turtles in nearly two years, so we assume they've moved on and we don't know why but they do appear to be roamers. A neighbor found one recently and brought it here, hoping it would stay in our yard, but it returned to her front door, of all places. So they introduced it carefully to Polly the dog, and are hoping that the turtle will survive in their active yard (dogs, chickens, children, construction). We do too.

I'm a little anxious that here it is almost November and we've seen only a trickle of the common warblers, no ovenbird this year yet (usually shows up in mid August) and certainly no painted buntings.