Interesting- I once was told that hummingbirds love purple, and certainly in our yard those are the ones they are most often seen at.
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When I lived in New Mexico. my house had an arroyo on the edge of the property. The arroyo serve as some sort of critter superhighway since it ran up and into the open about 1 mile above the house and down to the large city park a block farther down hill from my house. There was cinderblock wall between my yard and the arroyo. (Typical New Mexico landscaping.)
I used to get all sort of mule deer in the yard and they ate everything, include the potted flowers in the middle of the dining table on my patio. I put up 6 ft high horse fencing on top of the 4 ft high cinderblock wall along the arroyo and the between my yard and the city property on the lot uphill from me. (My house backed up to a huge city water storage tank that was buried underground with tennis courts on top. No lights, thankfully!) to discourage the deer. I got frustrated when after doing that I still had deer–whole herds of them (I once counted 15!) chilling out in my yard under the tall pine trees every afternoon. And then I discovered why. They weren’t coming in over the arroyo wall–they walked down the suburban street, stopping to munch on all the neighbor’s potted plants, then jumped over the 4 ft high gate to my side yard before settling in for a nap.
Other animals in my backyard–rabbits, coyotes, quail, roadrunners, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, all sorts of small snakes (including once a whole nest of baby rattlesnakes–had the city animal control come remove those), a 5ft long bull snake, bobcats who used to come to hunt the rabbits, hummingbirds, flocks of mourning doves. A neighbor leaving for the gym at 5 am saw a cougar lope down the street, then leap over the 6 ft high gate at the back end of my driveway and disappear into my backyard. My 15 lb Maine Coon cross cat had a stand-off with a big Great Horned Owl one evening as they both eyed each other trying to decide who was the predator and who was the prey. (Both decided predator so I when outside to break up the confrontation before any critter got hurt.) There were mice and deer mice (Hanta virus vectors!) On several occasions, I had red tailed hawks perching on the back of patio dining chairs while hunting mourning doves.
No bears in my yard, but a couple of my neighbors who live closer to a bigger arroyo had bears.
In CA, we had peacocks in our yard on hot afternoons. We didn’t chase or bother them, but did discourage them from coming back since they are unreasonably loud (and sound like someone is being murdered) and can be very destructive. And flocks of wild parrots. Lots of bears in the neighborhood. There was a huge tree in the front yard of the house behind us that was covered with bear claw marks and we found bear scat in our driveway more than once.
In VA, we have tons of foxes and white tailed deer in the yard. Raccoons, squirrels, possums chipmunks, flying squirrels, mice (which were living inside the walls of house when D and SIL moved in as well as a raccoon or 3 living in the attic). D has bird feeder outside so we have so many birds. This summer we watched a family of blue jays hatch and rear their chicks. Last summer it was a cardinal family. (But sadly Mr. Handsome, who was old, scarred and raggedy, did not survive the winter. Now there is new cardinal family nearby, but the jays discouraged them from raising their family in the yard this year.) There are geese, herons, swans, osprey at the lake 1/2 mile down hill from the house.
D is taking an online beekeeping class and wants to set up a beehive on the side of the yard near the bamboo thicket. She doesn’t want the bees for honey or wax, but to help conserve bees.
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A robin fledgling just land on my large covered front porch, but got a leg stuck in a watering can. Got off but is now hiding behind it (was standing a bit). Saw mama bring it food twice, the third time I think she saw me at the window and jumped off. I don’t know if I should move it to the lawn or wait. I don’t know if it’s hurt. My porch has 8 stairs. There is a huge leafy tree next to the porch that I call the chuckle patch because so many birds are in it, around dusk it starts to vibrate and get loud.
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Ok so for the first time (last month) in 10 yrs our golden doodle ate a fledging bird. Never ate any thing wild before. We are not sure if she gobbled it because H was yelling No. I since heard our friend with a lab had the exact same thing happen to him. So it may be really tempting if you have a dog…
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We do have a dog who has had her share of baby bunnies and chipmunks, but she’s 14 and has cancer (chihuahuas rat terrier rescue). Baby is now on top of a chair by the porch railing on the other side of the porch (25 feet ish away from the first spot). Before she moved, mama came back so I stopped peeking, didn’t want to scare her away). Still has some pin feathers.
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And after 8 hours, and more mama visits (and a phone call to raptor trust to confirm it was okay), it is no longer in my porch (just left some poop). Guess I have no more excuses not to water my hanging baskets.
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Our last dog brought a deer leg to our back door. I don’t want to know! In Maine, a dog can be shot just for chasing a deer. 
I get it, but how can you stop a dog from doing that when you live in the woods?
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I imagine the only person who might shoot a dog for chasing a deer would be a hunter who had his target chased off.
A friend of mine whose backyard backed up to the National Forest once had a bow hunter come into her smallish, typical suburban backyard, armed his crossbow, drew it back and prepared to to let fly at a deer he had tracked into her yard. She ran outside to scream and chase the hunter off–not because she was anti-hunting and wanted deer go free, but because her 3 year old son was also out in the backyard playing in the bushes between the deer and the hunter. The hunter was unreasonably angry with her, cursed her and made some pretty nasty threats…
(She did call the police who told the hunter that while he was allowed to track an injured animal, he was NOT allowed to pursue it into a residential area and was definitely NOT allow to shoot his weapon in a residential area.)
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This happened after we hadn’t been in Maine long. So sad. And the hunter was acquitted.
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Great Horned Owl tonight. Outside our opened windows. They can sound quite scary. Love the MerlinBird ID app.
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I learned about sweat bees today. Fortunately I was not the one stung by them- I heard the story about being stung by multiple small bees from a friend.
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We just created a new garden bed with native plants in hopes of attracting pollinators. Some of what we planted: swamp azaleas, foam flower, and bergamot. I hope we can expand this bed next year. We’re late with these plantings, but did find a large nursery that did still have these natives/pollinators. Also, we had an extremely helpful salesperson who really knew her “natives and pollinators.”
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Aack! Just saw a carpenter ant on the deck. 
Thank goodness the deck is not edible. That’s the type of nature that will be very actively discouraged from coming even closer to the house. Gotta put some Maxforce out for the visitors…
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Carpenter ant bait did the trick! I left some protein rich one and added some sugar based for dessert. No more ants to be seen anywhere on the deck!
Meanwhile, we had a very cute visitor. Don’t worry, its mom was nearby eating my bushes
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I have had moles and voles in my herb beds. I’ve tried sonar devices, castor oil repellents, mole repellant plants (alliums) and traps to try and get rid of them. So far, Have-a-Heart traps have worked the best. For some reason, we haven’t seen signs of them this year.
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Just found out that a bobcat has been hanging around the block where I used to live in NJ.
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D lives in a suburban area in a neighborhood with lots of trees but no “woods.” They have a lot of deer. This one came into their chain link fenced backyard & stopped for a rest this afternoon.
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We live in the woods with lots of wildlife, including deer, turkeys, foxes, squirrels, groundhogs, owls, racoons, and even turkey vultures. All are welcome except squirrels on the bird feeder, and racoons on the porch, which our dog chases away.
Unfortunately, we have wetlands behind the house, which means mosquitoes. Sometimes, lots of skeeters. We do not spray, but we run a couple zappers on our porch, and we install bat and sparrow houses. Anything that eats mosquitoes is welcome at our house.
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