Every summer my feeding station attracts plenty of birds including cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice, northern parulas, and a host of others. But it also attracts a fair number of other animals as well. There are quite a variety of insects during the day, a few mammals at night, and several reptiles, including these adorable five lined skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus). This year I had one make her nest in my back porch, and when the eggs hatched there were half a dozen or so, tiny little skinks running around. Some of them probably got eaten by another animal, and a couple more have probably moved on, but there are still three small ones and a larger one that show up pretty regularly. It turns out that they are very fond of the meal worms that I put out for the insectivorous birds. They will often grab one or two and munch away while hanging out on the porch railing. The songbirds seem to pay them absolutely no attention. When they aren’t eating meal worms they also climb around all over the porch from the roof to the ground. This is one of this years young, and he’s (or could be she’s) looking through a hole in the railing to make sure it’s safe in there. Seconds later he had disappeared through the opening. It was just awfully cute watching the skink peer through as if checking to see if someone was home in there.