Topic: birds
The young chickadees in the house above my kitchen window are chirping more loudly now, sounding more like adults and less like peepers. The two adults are deliving mosquitoes, delphinium defoliaters, and some long-legged flying thing, arriving with beaks full and bug parts sticking out all directions. A nuthatch family (two adults and a young one, I believe) have begun using the bird feeder like a McDonald's drive up, flitting back and forth between it and the birch/spruce thicket in the back, peeping their little horns frantically. At least two juncos are the silent users of yard, hopping through the vegetable garden.
When the chickadees sound the alarm with dee-dee-dee I go out and distract the neighbor's cat, who is more interested in getting picked up and petted than stalking birds, although I'm sure he'd kill all the birds he could catch.
