By Pauline Tom
Susie Way tidbitted that they have frequently seen finches drinking from their hummingbird feeders. She said, “The hummers have pretty much moved on, so we just now took down the hummer feeders and enjoy birds landing on their own feeders with seed.”
Now, isn’t that interesting, how we can live in different worlds in Mountain City? For me, the hummers still visit each day. Their numbers are down, but they’re still zooming around our yard. Most have moved northward for breeding season. Those who remain have flowers and insects galore for their food supply.
And, we’ve never seen “The Mountain City Foxes” near our house. They show up in quite a few spots in our little “somewhat out in the country” city.
A full fox family foursome appeared last week in the backyard where foxes denned under the deck last summer. The homeowner got some great shots, even through the window screen. One of her friends mentioned the value of removing the screens. The family really made themselves at home.
May brought the usual new white-tailed fawns. Has anyone not seen at least one?
Laura Craig’s keen eyes captured the remarkable sight of a stem full of baby grasshoppers over on Cedar at Pecan. What a gorgeous photo she furnished. Here’s hoping the newspaper has room to print it.
When I posted a photo to Facebook of a snake on our chain link fence, one of my friends just saw the stick on the ground. It’s easy to miss nature’s marvelous wonders. None of my Facebook friends got the identity exactly right. Our resident Snake Rescuer, Rick Thomas (512 393 1986) id’d the little Great Plains Rat Snake. It only grows 3-5 feet, quite unlike the Texas rat snake.
My friend, Phil Berry, VP of the North American Bluebird Society, teased that they only eat bluebirds. Indeed, rat snakes eat birds, but they’re much more likely to eat rats and mice.
Biodiversity keeps a balance in nature. Just this week I was reading (Cary Institute of Ecosystems website) that opossums are a dead end for the ticks that carry Lyme disease. The ticks that are not eaten when they latch onto an opossum find a very robust immune system that appears to do a good job defeating Lyme disease.
On the other hand, scientists believe certain rodents are the best reservoirs for the pathogen that produces Lyme disease. The rodents don’t do a good job killing the ticks, and their systems to not fight off the pathogen effectively.
We don’t have a Lyme disease problem in Mountain City. But, we do have snakes and rodents and opossums. More and more I’m valuing the balance that God put into place when He created. I inflicted damage on that balance back when I moved to Central Texas twenty years ago. Back then, with my upbringing, “the only good snake was a dead snake.”
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Remember the Garage Sale this Saturday, June 7.
And remember to send tidbits to ptom5678@gmail.com or 512-268-5678. Thanks! Love, Pauline
