the wildlife

A few days ago my husband and I saw a fox, walking on the path through the woods behind our neighborhood. We were just at to the end of the trail where it loops back to the street, the fox came trotting straight towards us, then saw us and veered off cutting corner through someone's backyard to circle around behind. So close! I love that.

Haven't seen the blue jays in a while. Still a wren or two, robins, the pair of cardinals, sparrows and the cheeky little catbirds. If I sit under the deck a long while I can observe them closely. The catbird has a regular route from its nest in the euonymus by the corner of the house, across one side of the garden and down the other, poking through the tomato bed last. Then it circles around and comes back down the opposite side of the same beds, before flitting back into the shrub. Usually with some insects in its beak.When I'm not sitting there, I've seen it take a shortcut to the tomato plants, stopping halfway to perch on the arm of my chair! But I haven't seen a jay anywhere, or a tail sticking over the nest rim, in a week or more. I wonder if the squirrels finally got to the nest.

This year I have all my herbs lined up in a row on the deck against the house- here in the pic you can see left to right: chocolate mint, bay laurel, three basils on the shelf and two dill below (cut back because I harvested a bunch), further beyond are the other mints, rosemary, chervil, etc etc. I'll get a better photo soon.

But this! I had to move all the shelves so my husband could rip out some rotting planks on the deck and put new boards down (the news ones are the natural wood color, not the old red stain) and I found this guy

his face, trying hard to ignore me

Now I can try identify: I think it's a gray treefrog.

I let him be after the few photos. He was tucked behind the pot of chives, and didn't move at all when I lifted the whole shelf to shift the plants. Still there when I moved them back again!