zuzu,
Your cottage garden image is very lovely and inviting. I'm guessing that is your garden, maybe? Yes, I have found that my cottage garden has become a desirable home and dining area for a great many small creatures. When I 1st bought this property, the back yard was just an empty space with a lawn, no trees, shrubs, or flowers except for those around the perimeter of the house. I put up a bird feeder full of BOSS but was surprised to find that the birds all sat on the back fence by the forest, staring longingly at the feeder but unwilling venture out across the open expanse of yard to reach it.
It was only much later after I began adding lots of plants that my yard began to overflow with birds of all kinds, some at the feeder, others dining on insects, fruit, seed heads, etc. Only then as I watched the hawk circling overhead but unable to navigate the busy garden did I come to realize why the birds had been so unwilling to cross that empty expanse of lawn earlier.
I've heard others talk of their cats eating comfortably with opossums and raccoons. Regrettably, my cats don't do that. I'm starting to think that Ms Kitty may be the instigator. She tends to be quite territorial. She even seems to be very protective of me. I say the latter because she will tolerate other creatures in the yard as long as I'm inside, but will aggressively try to chase them away if I'm out there. When I feed the raccoons, she comes up beside me and growls and snarls at them, trying to get them to leave. I usually have to put her inside at such times just to keep her out of trouble. She even got very aggressive with a copperhead in the backyard on day. There again, she had been lying around tolerating the copperhead's presence while I was inside but began to harass him as soon as I went out there. (Luckily, she moves fast when necessary.)
