We're Under Attack!

For the past several days, a female cardinal has been knocking on our front door. Well, technically, it's pecking at the brass kickplate at the bottom of the door. It's not doing any damage, but it's a really odd and distracting behavior. The bird is chased away easily enough, but it just lands in a nearby tree and watches until we go away so it can return to its favorite passtime.

After listening to a few minutes of door pecking this morning, Margo and I heard a bang on the back window by our fireplace. Sure enough, a silly cardinal (same one?) had flown into the window. Then it happened again. And again! That bird smacked into the window 9 times while we stood there watching.

Then Margo noticed the squirrel. Big, gray, twitching tail... right outside our back door. The dog was staring out the door but didn't seem to notice it even though it was about 2 inches away on the other side of the glass. (I'm pretty sure the dog is getting a bit farsided like me, but that's another matter.) What was the squirrel doing? Apprently it was gnawing on our rubber doormat. No idea why.

And I'm not even going to mention the wood-boring bee that seems to be eyeing our trellis lately.

We love living out in the woods. It's really extraordinary. But it seems like the woodland creatures may be hoping we'll share our new digs. Ha! Little do they know! It's war, I tell ya!