18 January 10
17 January 10
Two Long Walks
I’ve signed up to do the Big Green Year again, and finally decided on the walking one rather than bike. But for one reason or another we haven’t gone on many long walks in 2010, and I hadn’t started keeping even a decent yard list.
Yesterday we walked west along the levee and Riparian Reserve trails out to the UC Davis airport, about 2.5 miles from home. Species totalled: 44, including a pair of common moorhens. Then, today, we walked in to campus to get the paper, picked up nine more species, and were rewarded with a couple of river otters in the creek. I didn’t sketch them but hope to have another chance.
13 January 10
Woodpeckers
About an hour apart, a flicker and a Nuttall’s…
12 January 10
Birds, Between Rainstorms
!(right)http://www.magpienest.org/images/1166.jpg (Bluebirds and scrub jays)!Lots of activity this morning when the sun made a brief and rare appearance. I saw several bluebirds, many robins, several scrub-jays. The rain’s returned.
7 January 10
6 January 10
What's Eleven?
Yellow-billed magpies in the field, chowing down on worms. There are worm castings everywhere I look. The robins seem pretty excited as well…
I can’t remember what eight is in the magpie children’s rhyme, and there isn’t an eleven. Oh well. Happy New Year.
18 December 09
Bedraggled Red-tail
Drippy fog yields not many birds. This young red-tail sat on a post for hours today…
17 December 09
Red-shouldered Hawk
Not much joy in and among the trees today, but noisy.
16 December 09
11 December 09
Young Red-tail with Squirrel
The young red-tailed hawk that’s been hanging around here finally caught a square meal, a squirrel. I saw it land, drag it up to this post, look around defiantly, and finally fly off with it in the direction of a tall pine.
We got quite a bit of rain today, a steady gentle drizzle. More rain’s expected tomorrow, and possibly thunderstorms. This is good for raptors looking for half-drowned rodents…