I've have spiraled out of control into the world of hoarding. I have cats, oh my do I have cats, just not the furry kind. There has been a vertible monarch 'splosion behind the bird store and I have been collecting caterpillars (cats) and eggs. As of Saturday, I had about 26 eggs and cats that I had brought in from a milkweed patch at the edge of the employee parking lot and yesterday our mall landscapers wiped it out. I found another patch near our bird feeders and I have never seen so many eggs on milkweed ever! One plant had 14 eggs and three newly hatched caterpillars. Many leaves had 2 eggs and one leaf had two eggs and one wee caterpillar. I can't stop picking them up but my monarch ranch is now almost filled to capacity. My employees are contributing to my monarch madness, Denny sent me a link to an article about how monarchs navigate during migration--cool stuff.

I think part of my problem is that it's a slow birding time. Birds are moving out of nesting territories, some are flockingup for migration and in our case at the store, all the brush trimming has more than likely sent birds in search of quieter yards. I'm sure we'll have better feeder activity next week. Of course, it may be so darned hot that the birds are just laying low. On the NovaBird Camera today, all we got were crows and the poor dudes are panting in almost every shot.