Fox Sparrows and Peregrines

For all you non-baseball people out there, you will probably be relieved to know that it will all be over one way or the other by the end of Sunday, and we’ll be talking about other things on here than World (i.e. American) Series, RBIs, closers, sluggers, injuries (well, maybe there are still a few more injury tales), irate Yankee coaches, and the like.

Instead, there will be more tales such as this:

A fox sparrow was scratching around in the oleander leaves this morning. Fox sparrows in California are much darker brown than their reddish Eastern counterparts. Some rascal is working hard to split the different races of fox sparrow into three or possibly eight different species. I love the splotches on their chests, their shyness, and their song in spring, which we don’t hear much except in the mountains.

We don’t see peregrine falcons much, either, since they are much more rare than the American kestrel, the more common falcon of these parts. Coming out of Medea Benjamin’s talk on Tuesday, though, a peregrine flew southeast over Environmental Horticulture. It now appears that this is a bird that may be hanging around the Arboretum. Which is great: their favorite food is ducks, and there is no shortage of ducks for them in the Arb!