Category Archives: Birds

We were having the Sunday brunch at the hotel restaurant in Anaheim over the weekend. Looking out of the two-story, floor to ceiling windows at the pool deck, I see a huge, white bird  land in the top of a palm tree. A stork? A heron?

Since we were done with brunch, I went out on the deck and immediately noticed that the “pool deck” was actually a koi pond next to the pool deck around the corner.

Ah, it took me about five seconds to put two and two together.

I don’t know much about koi, but I do sort of remember that there are “cheap” koi and there are really, really expensive koi. I hope these are the former…

I sort of figured that the large bird (it’s a Great Egret) would have taken off with me and some waiters and some pool folks out there, but I underestimated the appeal of a koi buffet.

It didn’t look to me like the Egret got a koi … in this visit. It acted like it knew its way around and I expected it to be back sooner rather than later.

Unusual to see this critter in this highly urban environment, but it’s only a dozen miles from the beach and all of the marshes and coastal areas down around Seal Beach, so I guess I just got lucky!

Sunset-ish, I was re-filling the bird seed feeders out in the back on the pergola. In hanging a couple of the refilled feeders up I apparently spooked a half-dozen or more large ravens that were on the ground in the dirt lot on the far side of the wall.

Whatever it was they were doing they took noisy exception to being disturbed, and started screaming and dive bombing me.

I pointed out to them that I was the one leaving grapes for them in the front yard and I didn’t feel like being screamed at. Besides, there’s a line for that, if they were going to scream at me they needed to wait their turn.

Meanwhile I whipped out my phone and started shooting off quick pictures at random, figuring if I ended up like a Hitchcock victim at least there would be evidence of how it happened.

Half went off to roost on the power line towers out across the way, the other half went to polish off the rest of the grapes. I survived to tell the tale.

I went out into the back yard, it was very pleasant. When I went out, all of the critters and birds fled, but as I sat still for a while, they started to come back.

Over behind the pergola, this little dude popped his head up to keep his eye on me. It’s like he thought that I couldn’t see him. Okay, I’ll play along.

Then when it was time for me to go in, I quietly stood up. The birds that had come back fled again, and this little dude started doing that ear piercing, squirrel version of “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!”

Jeez Louise, dude! I’m twenty feet away, I’m old, I’m slow, and all I did was stand up. Chillax!

For the most part, the back yard at the Willett Family Zoo is a peaceful place of calm coexistence. The only exception that we see regularly comes from the hawks – one of them overhead will set off all of the squirrel “guards” with that really high-pitched “alarm!” call they have. It works – the last couple of days they’ve woken me up before 07:00 with that racket.

But the baby squirrels seem oblivious to the pigeons, which still outweight them by a factor of at least two or three.

Of course, the other monster that’s constantly causing all of the feathered creatures to fly and the furry ones to flee to their hidey holes under the pergola, is ME. Imagine the audacity that I must have to think that I can just go strolling out into my own yard any time I feel like it. Even when I’m going out to re-fill the bird seed feeders (pretty much daily now) I get attitude, not gratitude. The finches, wrens, and scrub jays now will line up on the back cinder block wall and bitch at me to hurry up, while the pigeons will sit on the roof of the house and do that whole purring pigeon sound, but in unison and an octave down, so it sounds like the soundtrack from “The Birds.”

I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying! I’m not asking for the birds to flock around and worship me like I’m some animated Disney princess (although I do have the pretty pretty princess hair!), but would it kill them to simply relax and not freak out when I’m simply coming out to feed them and help out? The hummingbirds are proving that it can be done – I’ve had hummers come up to two separate feeders that were inside of arm’s length from where I was standing and they minded their own business and fed while I minded my own business and watched them. (A little bit of awe was involved.)

Peaceful coexistence! If everyone can get along with the baby squirrels and pigeons, why can’t they simply ignore me?