Busy time for wildlife

It may have been too hot this week for humans to be away from air-conditioning, but the wildlife at the Sullivan household has been as busy as ... No, not bees. Thank goodness we don't have a problem with bees.

Sometimes when you think life is grinding you down, and you forget to give the good Lord thanks for all the blessings in your life, all you have to do is reflect for a moment: Thank you, God, for not putting any bees in my yard.

Well, it's something to be thankful for.

On the other hand, you might be praying: Gracious God, I'd take a few bees -- not many, but a few -- if you'd knock 10 degrees or so off the high temperature.

Of course, it's always dangerous to bargain with the Almighty, as many of you have already learned, just as Abraham did. A mirthful Ultimate Being has no problem answering such a prayer. It is no accident, however, that the high temp hits 112 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade the day before.

See what I mean?

If anything has been setting the pace for warm-weather activity, it has been the hummingbirds. For years we've had one dominant male hummingbird who spent his entire summer chasing off any other hummers.

This spring I had a brilliant idea when I saw a display of hummingbird feeders at the store. They were only 99 cents apiece, so I bought four of them. We already had two: one for the kitchen window and another for the family-room window on the other side of the house. My brilliant idea was to put up all the new feeders in the mimosa tree, making it impossible for one greedy hummingbird to guard them all.

So when May rolled around and the first hummer started making his appearance, I waited for the others to show up at the other feeders. And waited. And waited.

Suddenly, last week as the thermometer came dangerously close to spewing lava, we noticed a lot of whizzing and buzzing in the yard. The hummers were there. They were all chasing each other. At one time my wife and I counted eight hummingbirds in the yard at the same time.

My brilliant idea worked -- partially. We saw two hummers eating at one feeder and a third at one of the remote feeders.

Three is better than one.

Meanwhile, the squirrels finally cracked our squirrel-proof bird feeder -- one in a long line of squirrel-proof feeders that turned out to be a rodent's best friend.

It took the squirrels almost three years to get to the bird seed in this feeder. It required hanging by their toes and swinging like a clock pendulum to get the seed. But it worked.

So I installed another feeder this week. Another squirrel-proof feeder. You should see my garden shed. It looks like a museum of man's efforts to outsmart squirrels, which have brains the size of jumbo peanuts.

One day this week I mentioned to my wife that we hadn't seen any raccoons since the Summer of Trapping three years ago that sent seven of the masked bandits to more hospitable climes in the Land of Lincoln.

Thursday morning I went out to get the paper. Miss Kitty was waiting, as usual, but her attention was on the other end of the patio. Imagine my surprise when I spotted three raccoons bunched together. Then three more. Then two more from behind the hedge. The eight critters wanted to get in the rock-pile fountain, I'm sure. Miss Kitty and I had other ideas.

That's just what we need: A band of furry-tailed hustlers smarter than squirrels.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.