Inca Dove | White-winged Dove | American Golden-Plover | Pacific Golden-Plover | Lesser Black-backed Gull | Pacific Loon | Zone-tailed Hawk | Tropical Kingbird | THICK-BILLED KINGBIRD | Eastern Phoebe | Grasshopper Sparrow | Dark-eyed “Pink-sided” Junco | White-throated Sparrow | Green-tailed Towhee | Black-and-white Warbler | Bay-breasted Warbler | Painted Redstart | Summer Tanager
Tundra Swan | Mountain Plover | American Golden-Plover | Pacific Golden-Plover | Sandhill Crane | Lesser Black-backed Gull | Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | “Prairie” Merlin | Dusky-capped Flycatcher | Tropical Kingbird | THICK-BILLED KINGBIRD | Eastern Phoebe | Gray Catbird | Dark-eyed “Pink-sided” Junco | Green-tailed Towhee | Bobolink | Black-and-white Warbler | Tennessee Warbler | Lucy’s Warbler | Palm Warbler | Painted Redstart | Summer Tanager | Blue Grosbeak | Lazuli Bunting
Common Ground Dove | Lesser Nighthawk | Pacific Golden-Plover | Lesser Black-backed Gull | WEDGE-TAILED SHEARWATER | Zone-tailed Hawk | Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | “Black” Merlin | Tropical Kingbird | Eastern Phoebe | Clay-colored Sparrow | Dark-eyed “Pink-sided” Junco | White-throated Sparrow | Green-tailed Towhee | Black-and-white Warbler | Lucy’s Warbler | Bay-breasted Warbler | Cape May Warbler | Painted Redstart | Summer Tanager | Scarlet Tanager
Common Ground Dove | White-winged Dove | Mountain Plover | Pacific Golden-Plover | Red Phalarope | Lesser Black-backed Gull | American Bittern | Little Blue Heron | Broad-winged Hawk | Zone-tailed Hawk | Tropical Kingbird | Pacific Wren | Red-throated Pipit | Lapland Longspur | Chestnut-collared Longspur | Grasshopper Sparrow | Clay-colored Sparrow | Dark-eyed “Pink-sided” Junco | White-throated Sparrow | Green-tailed Towhee | Black-and-white Warbler | Tennessee Warbler | Lucy’s Warbler | Cape May Warbler | Blackburnian Warbler | Magnolia Warbler | Palm Warbler | Summer Tanager | Painted Bunting
Lesser Nighthawk | Pacific Golden-Plover | Sabine’s Gull | Lesser Black-backed Gull | Little Blue Heron | Western Cattle Egret | Broad-winged Hawk | Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | Tropical Kingbird | Chestnut-collared Longspur | Grasshopper Sparrow | Lark Bunting | Clay-colored Sparrow | Orchard Oriole | Rose-breasted Grosbeak | Painted Bunting | Black-and-white Warbler | Tennessee Warbler | Lucy’s Warbler | American Redstart | Cape May Warbler | Magnolia Warbler | Blackburnian Warbler | Blackpoll Warbler | Palm Warbler | Summer Tanager
I am witness to some especially exciting hawk activity in the backyard this morning, along with a circus of dark-eyed juncos, mockingbirds, Black Phoebes, California Towhee’s, house finches, and squirrels. The hawk startles an adult squirrel, who has been camping out on the squirrel-proof feeder, sphinxlike, for nearly half an hour, into a sudden and urgent leap to safety in the neighbor’s magnolia grandiflora. The feeder swings madly back and forth from the shock.
A black phoebe has taken a liking to our backyard, perching variously on the spent orchid stem, the tomato plant cage, the long slender stem of the Agapanthus, and the telephone wire. She visits often throughout the day, feeding on the small yellow moths she spies in the grass, swooping down to snatch them and gliding back up to her perch to swallow them.
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