Today's theme in my backyard was juvenile! For some reason I had a whole flock of juvenile birds of various types in my yard including robins, orioles and two sparrow species. The juvenile robins acted as if they had never seen a human before and at one point fearlessly joined me on my hammock. The juvenile orioles followed the grackles around at my feeders wondering if the seed they were eating was similarly edible for them. It wasn't, so I spread some fruit jelly around for them to pick at, but a woodpecker came along and quickly made away with it instead. The chipmunks have had their young and they were all out today too. There were nearly a dozen chipmunks around today, a record. Hummingbirds were non-stop every couple of minutes all day long too.
 
This was the first time in many weeks that there has been much activity in my backyard. I think I know why things have been quiet here too. I have a statue of Saint Francis in my garden. He is the patron saint of animals and the environment. The squirrels, however, don't seem to like him very much and keep knocking him over. For some reason the squirrels have even chewed the beaks of the birds off the statue. After a few years, the repeated assault on his figure by the squirrels recently cumulated in poor Saint Francis' head breaking off and he has been lying decapitated in my garden for some time now. Today, however, he was glued back together and returned to his perch in the garden. And then the birds came…!!