One day last week I had just the best day in terms of animal sightings! I was out watering early and a cute little racer snake slithered out from under a salvia when the water hit him/her, about 18-24 inches long and no bigger around than a pencil, with a pretty yellow stripe running down the side.
Then, while watering on the opposite side of the house that same morning, I heard the quail start a ruckus in the gully and looked up to see a bobcat frozen in place stalking them. The cat stood perfectly still for maybe 30 seconds, watching me watching it, then bounded on up the gully leaving the quail alone.
Then, as if that weren't enough, the red shouldered hawk that often circles above and tries to pick off the birds that come to our feeders landed in the oak tree outside our kitchen door. This time all the birds squawked!
Just a day or two later, I found these tracks on the back of our berm where there is often mud:
Those by Scottie's hand are the bobcat. The one above and to the front may be a coyote, not sure. . . . How cool is this? (Thanks, Dr. Hannan for the help on ID!)
And, very, very good reason for my cats to be just indoor girls. Both Mr. Coyote and Ms. Bobcat would love them for dinner!
We have just a ton of birds right now. Migration is obviously starting for some. The rufous hummingbird, one of my absolute favorites, doesn't spend the summer here; and just a very few of them come through here on migration. I got to know them when we lived in New Mexico and really get a kick out of them. They are really pretty with their rust coloration, and they are much more aggressive than the Ana's hummingbirds. They chatter a lot and drive the Ana's away from the feeders. In NM we'd have 20 rufous guys gathered 'round a feeder and full blown hummer wars.
We seem to have more birds that travel through here, but there are a few that I loved in NM that we don't get. The Stellar Jay can be seen higher up in the mountains, but not at this warm elevation. We don't get the pyrrhuloxia (Yes, I had to look up the spelling.) at all, and I really like that grayed-down relative of the cardinal. And, I haven't seen any green tailed towhees here. Darn.
Guess that's just me, always wanting "more" be that animals and birds or something else!
Scottie's is off to the Park for the week. Having sent off his letter to three in the upwards chain of command, he should be in for an interesting time! Leave it to my Sweet Babboo to take on the National Park Service.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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