We Love The Stars Too Fondly

Last October, a small group of a new type of bird showed up in our back yard.

They’re distinctive looking and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t ever seen them before. We certainly hadn’t seen them at this house in what was at the time about two and a half years.

Cute little baby dinosaurs, they have a black head, a white underbelly, and they tend to be ground feeders.

We had a half-dozen or so of them at first, but soon there were more. They love the shrubs that we and the neighbors each have along our fence lines. And they loved whatever we had on our lawn.

It wasn’t long before we started putting out some bird seed for them. Word must have gotten around, because most of the winter we’ve had more like two dozen of them around.

They hop, they flit, they scurry, and then all of a sudden they simultaneously all bolt to the bushes. (The shadow of a hawk often immediately follows.)

With time I started to get better pictures, although they don’t hang out for long when I go out into the back yard. But with better pictures came an ID in the Cornell Lab Merlin app.

These are Dark-eyed Juncos, a type of sparrow. They apparently have a lot of color variation between different populations, which you can see in looking at these pictures. But the basic “chunky Junco” body, black head, white belly design is consistent. There just may be differences in detail in the grey areas.

When I found out what they are I was told that they’re migratory and won’t stay for long, so I expected them to be gone by now. But the steady food supply may have convinced them to sit tight for a while.

Fine by me! They’re now getting bold enough to come up onto the back patio (okay, seed gets spilled there and they’re voracious) and cute as can be, so they can hop around the back yard as long as they want!

These were taken in the last week or so on two separate nights.

As I commented the other day to someone on Twitter, there are a surprising number of rabbits living in the Los Angeles suburbs. But there are also a surprising number of coyotes. It tends to balance out.

On the other hand, we live at the very top of a fairly high and very steep hill. And coyotes are lazy.

(Except, of course, for Wile E. Coyote. He was very much an ambitious and industrious fellow, even if the laws of physics did seem to always be breaking in such a way that he got screwed.)

So about dinner time and/or sunset, we’ll see one or two of these fluffbutts in the back yard.

Once it’s full dark there are usually anywhere from two to five or six in the front yard. It’s bunny paradise.

But they never leave eggs, colored or otherwise, just those little Raisinette-like things. (They’re not candy, taste like shit…)

If you celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

There was a day a while back when I was out in the backyard and heard a woodpecker quite nearby, but couldn’t spot her.  She was a shy little thing.

Can you see her right in the middle of this picture, in this dead-ish tree in the neighbor’s yard?

I swear she was actively working to keep a branch or trunk of the tree between me and her.

And doing a really good job of it.

Over the next couple of weeks I would hear her banging away on some nearby tree every now and then, but rarely had a chance to even spot her at all, let alone get my camera and snap a picture. But eventually I caught her roosting and resting way, way up in that huge tree in our back yard:

Better, but not great. However, with a decent picture of her spots and plumage, I was able to get a positive ID in the Cornell Merlin app…

…and find out that she’s a female Nuttall’s Woodpecker!

She’s ID’d as female because there’s no red patch on top of her head. I’ll have to keep an eye out for a male companion. (And that is one SHARP looking little beak!)

Eventually I’ve caught her for some better pictures.

I’ve always loved woodpeckers, they’re so unique and colorful. I would love to have a couple of pairs of pileated woodpeckers, MUCH larger birds, but they don’t hang out in this part of the country. (But if you’re watching the Cornell Lab FeederWatch at Sapsucker Woods live webcam, you’ll see them there every day.)

Rat-a-tat-tat!!

Spring is springing!

It’s gotten warm again. Dr. Lizardo has finally shown up again and is lording over the front yard from his spot underneath the van’s tires, as always. I was getting a bit worried, I hadn’t seen him in about two weeks, even though there had been dozens of tiny, young hatchlings running about. There are a bunch of little dudes in the back yard as well, but today I noticed this much larger, new guy lounging in the sun.

He was cool, chillin’ (or rather, “warmin'”) on the edge of this strip of wood. I figured this would be as good of a picture of him that I would get since I expected him to bolt as soon as I looked his way.

But he stuck around, and it was immediately obvious that he has some very distinctive markings on his belly.

His belly and the underside of his arms and throat are bright white, while the rest of him is quite dark.

He let me get several steps closer before he gave me the stink eye, so I backed off. But look at those long, LONG fingers!

He looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo, so I shall call him “Tux!”

Because I can.