April Shower & Wild Life House List

Saturday afternoon, while working in my art studio, I saw the most enchanting scene unfold below me...the children of Hickory Cluster enjoying an April shower in an umbrella fort.


"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity." — Thomas Huxley.

We had a lovely visit from Satchel's Uncle Chip this weekend. Sunday morning, Chip spotted a coyote in back of our home. At first I thought it was a fox, but as Chip pointed out, it was too large to be a fox. I decided to keep a house list of all the wildlife we've seen.

This is what we have so far:

• 1 Great Blue Heron
• several Cooper's Hawks
• 2 Eagles
• 4 Deer
• 1 Pileated Woodpecker
• 3 Grackles
• 2 Turkey Vultures
• 1 Wolf Spider
• Black Throated Blue Warbler
• adorable Eastern Bluebirds
• 1 Great Northern Loon
• 1 red Fox
• 1 Coyote
• Several Marmorated Stink Bugs
• Many Asian Lady Beetles
• 1 Red Milkweed Beetle
• 1 Green June Beetle
• Chipmunks Galore
• 1 Black Rat Snake
• 2 Hummingbird sightings at our feeder
• Yellow Swallowtails and Black Swallowtails
• Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops
• Yellow Sulfur Butterfly
• tent worms
• unidentified caterpillar
• Cicadas
• the usual crew of Robins, BlueJays, Cardinals, Sparrows, and squirrels
• Cabbage White butterfly
• Summer Azure butterfly
• Red Admiral butterfly

(I'm still trying to identify some of the many other birds we see and I always point out the characteristics of the various animals to Satch. He now says "booday" or "Wobin" instead of just bird)
At this moment...the wind is howling and it is supposed to get stronger due to the Nor'easter. Robert said that considering all the rain we had Saturday night and Sunday, we should expect some trees to fall. A large tree outside my studio on the other side of the trail has already snapped.