[EBB Sightings] local breeders, different timetables

After a number of postings on the Calbirds list about
late-singing Swainson's, I finally heard my first
singing Swainson's thrush of the year at Huckleberry
Preserve yesterday (they have been calling there, sans
song, for several weeks). Their eerie song gives me
the shivers, but in a good way.

Other late birds were a handsome pair of red (head
and) shouldered hawks, flying through the Huckleberry
canyon, one carrying nesting material; looking at them
from above (a welcome relief for my neck), the bright
rufous of their "shoulders" was contiguous with their
heads. Such handsome hawks. I hoped to see where they
were nest building, but made the mistake of taking my
eyes away for just a second, and lost them in the
greenery. 

A pair (as opposed to the recent big flocks) of
bandtailed pigeons were cooing to each other, although
no billing was observed.

I may have spotted a couple of newly fledged raven
chicks, nearby a bulky nest concealed in the treetops,
spotted the day before by one of my eagle-eyed
friends. The raven "parents" (if that is indeed what
they were) anxiously called, and stayed close, and the
"kids" seemed clumsy in flight. Circumstantial
evidence, but not an unlikely scenario.

The resident Stellar's jays at Huck have expanded
their repertoire of mimicy with a pretty decent golden
eagle cry; they have lots of opportunity to practice,
and I'm sure they enjoy torturing the rest of the
locals, both avian and human, with their realistic
rendition. 

In my garden, I observed half of a pair of scrub jays
with the slightest hook at the tip of its beak (not
nearly so dramatic as the essentially crippled jay
with a severly overgrown beak that I last year dubbed
"Captain Hook"). Perhaps this bird has learned how to
keep the aberrant growing tip well-trimmed. Even in
the suburbs, the laws of the jungle apply: adapt or
die.

Two days ago I watched our resident, backyard brown
(OK, OK, California) towhees feed a fledge; all was
right in their world until a scrub jay screamed in
from nowhere and beat on the family group; Junior
dropped into the thick grass below the neighbor's
applepear and the parents flew off. And let that be a
lesson to ya, kid.

A pair of bushtit parents carted fat grubs to and fro
in the shrubbery, so they are busy with their very own
version of urban/suburban renewal. Glad to see the
cycle of life continuing, from my backyard to the vast
swath of parklands that blesses our wild home here in
the great, green Bay Area.
 

Debbie Viess
Oakland