Someone's been in my garden.

The wildlife have been visiting the garden. 
A phoebe built its nest on top of our backdoor light.  I would very much like to take a picture of her in it but she leaves when I go out the door or am any where near the door.  A few years ago, a purple finch made its nest on top of the same light.  Phoebes and purple finches have different philosophies on nest building. 

The finches locate a suitable platform and throw the nest materials on it.  The nest materials will either stay there or fall off.  Sometimes the partially formed nest will completely fall off.  On the other hand, the phoebes are very intentional and quite precise.  They first locate a suitable platform and then bring in the nest materials.  They very carefully lay the nest materials on the platform and then mud them into place.  I am not certain if they bring in mud or just use spit but it is extremely effective.  They can quickly assemble a nest with no waste motions. 

Last week we were visited by a little yellow rumped warbler.  We are in its migratory path, just a little south of its summer breeding grounds.  That probably explains why I have never seen one before. 

There are at least six tulip stems in this picture, all missing their flower.  This is just one grouping of tulips suffering the same fate.  This one just happens to be my favorite, Elizabeth Arden.  Only two flowers have been spared, the one in the picture and a second one to the right outside the picture.  One night a deer decided to munch on my tulips.  I don't know.  If I ordered and planted a couple dozen Elizabeth Arden tulips in the fall, would that just give the deer more to eat next spring or would they proportionately leave more tulips to open? 

Today my kindergarten teacher gave me a little thank-you gift, a cute little plant with yellow flowers.  The flowers and leaves are like dahlias but it is something else with a name that suggests it is a relative.  I hurried to plant it as soon as I got home because it had gotten dry over the weekend and rain was on the way.  As I walked into the garden, a very young rabbit ran out the back gate.  I planted it in front of the large rock that is in the background of the picture above.  The rabbit would have been between the white narcissus and yellow daffodils.  

We are currently enjoying a heavy all-day series of thunderstorms.  Yesterday my husband and I decided to remove the winter mulch from the gardens when I came home from kindergarten today.  It had not yet begun to rain but was threatening progressively more ominously.  As much as I did not want to change into my work clothes and go out with him before it finally would begin to rain, I did.  We put in about a half an hour, just about enough time to get our hands dirty, before the rain began in earnest.