Busy Backyard

Our backyard is very busy at the moment. Birds and butterflies visit regularly, and squirrels pop in regularly, too. Hornets are building a nest on top of one of our deck beams, and digger bees have taken over a small patch of ground outside our living-room windows.

All this activity is keeping our cats occupied.

Our older cat, Petra, spends hours looking out at the scores of digger bees, which seem to spend all day staging dogfights. Luckily, the bees restrict themselves to "their" patch and don't bother us when we cross it. Petra also likes watching hummingbirds and there currently are enough migrating Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arguing over our feeders to keep her happy.

Our younger cat, Tiger, has taken to sitting near our shed and watching a small hole in the fence that blocks off our brush pile from the rest of the yard. We couldn't work out what she was stalking until two nights ago, when we caught a young possum finishing off some leftover cat food on our deck.

The possum was back last night. It snacked on cat food, washed this down with a drink from our fountain, and then disappeared through the fence hole into the brush pile. So it's now pretty clear what Tiger has been watching for.