Is "Here's a Picture of a Cute Chipmunk" an OK Blog Post Title?

This chipmunk was like a little vacuum cleaner, scrambling across my patio and barely slowing down to pick up sunflower seeds as it went:

I've seen tons of bunnies around East Falls Church, but hadn't seen one on my patio until this weekend. Or more accurately, saw my cat seeing the rabbit:

My friend Brian was over recently & noticed Wilma watching a chipmunk, a squirrel & a few birds on the patio. "I wonder what Wilma would do if she could get out?" he asked. Having previously observed this vicious predator in action, I said, "Let's find out!" and opened the door. Wilma lunged out onto the patio and ... watched the chipmunk & squirrel run away, watched the birds fly away, and moseyed over to the grass and started munching. Cats may be America's top threat to birds, but mine is apparently a pacifist.

So here's the updated list of species I've spotted in just the 7 months since I put a bird-feeder on my patio:

• Tufted Titmouse
• Carolina Chickadee
• Sharp-Shinned Hawk
• Carolina Wren
• Northern Cardinal
• Mourning Dove
• English Sparrow
• European Starling
• White-breasted Nuthatch
• Dark-eyed Junco
• Eastern Cottontail
• Eastern Gray Squirrel
• Eastern Chipmunk

I hadn't realized that as much as I complain about invasive European sparrows & starlings, American squirrels have been introduced to & invaded other parts of the world.

I For One Welcome Our New Bunny Overlords

If you follow me on Twitter or FourSquare, you know I've been amazed at how many rabbits have been hanging out in East Falls Church this year. It's rare that I can walk down Sycamore Street to EFC Metro without spotting at least one, if not 3 or 4.

ArlNow.com reports it's part of a regional bunny boom:

“It is indeed a boom year for rabbits in the county,” [Arlington County Parks spokesman Nathan] Spillman said, “Rabbit populations here are cyclical and about every seven or eight years you see a large spike in the population followed by a relatively steep (and quick) decrease as the boom attracts predators like foxes and hawks which bring the population down… It’s likely the decline will start to become noticeable as early as this November.” 

According to a just-released inventory of wildlife in Arlington (PDF), the rabbit population in Arlington (made up mostly of Eastern Cottontails, pictured) typically moves in cycles with the population of its primary predator, the fox.

And they're quite accustomed to people. The photo above was the second one I took - the first one I accidentally had the flash on. The bunny in the foreground didn't run away at the flash, just perked up its ears for a minute, then went back to munching clover.