Birdwatching Horse Watching Bird

Or is it a horsewatching bird watching horse? In either case there's a bird on the fence seen through the barn, and the two could be having a stare-down. (Even if you enlarge the photo, it's hard to see.)

It's easy to imagine that only humans take any pleasure in observing the fauna around us, but I suspect more than a few creatures size each other up, determine the level of threat, watch for patterns of behavior, and might even become amused. Certainly we must be the prime objects of such sport, with the One Who Brings Food garnering a very different reaction than the One Who Walks By or the One Who Shouts. But there's a time for observing, and a time for munching hay.

A View More True

The forecasters promised us snow on Sunday, but down in Little Lake Valley we only got drizzles of rain and plenty of gloom. This squirrel perched on the stub of a redwood branch, making chung-chung noises while sheltered by the evergreen canopy high overhead. The flock of birds beyond just waited and endured.

Scroll down here for the Willits forecast from NOAA.

The One that Got Away...

Comfortably past the Thanksgiving holiday, and the nationwide hunger for turkey meat, this wild bird happily scans the ground for its own feast. Turkeys are native to the United States, but I have only spotted them on the local scene in the last decade or so. John James Audubon wrote about his observations back East, in the early 1800s. Apparently, the tasty bird was so successfully introduced to the Old World around the 16th century, that confusion arose over its origins. Europeans gave it the name of the Turks, and the Turks gave it a name meaning "of India" (hindi)!

Okay, it wasn't just one on the hillside along Highway 20. They look a bit like something from Jurassic Park:



All right, so maybe it was more like twenty that got away. This appears to be a flock of gobblers (males), all done with breeding for the year (I read that in the Audubon link):

Waiting Out the Storm

A sharp-shinned hawk waited out a cool, light rain storm while overlooking the Gordon Logan Recreation Park a couple of days ago. I did not know Mr. Logan, but he is remembered as a great leader and mentor who could spot people's talents, and could make many an idle speculation on the part of others turn into completed and tangible assets for the City of Willits. He did not live to see the completion of these community sports fields, but he had everything to do with making them happen.

The weather has been incredibly generous, with intermittent but continual rain for all of the past week, and projected into the next.

Also Born To Be Wild

A pair of house sparrows found some prime nesting real estate - safe from predators, available (or made available by kicking someone else out), and gosh darn pretty. It even comes with a handy landing pad for waiting one's turn.

Hot Chicks

These brown Leghorn chicks are ready to revitalize your laying flock. J.D. Redhouse staff say more will be coming in, of varieties requested by customers.

Waiting for a Nutcracker

And the crow waits...

...for a passing car to hit his carefully positioned half broken walnut, below him...

...but I was bound to disappoint. I've seen them do this time and time again, guarding their prize from other birds at street level, eyeing the trajectory of the coming car, then flying clear in hopes of shattered nutmeat more easily eaten. There was another crow nearby, possibly learning, possibly a mate.