I planted myself in the middle of a field for this shot, watching a male and female Brewer’s blackbird forage around me — for insects, seeds, fruit …
[see full-size photo …]
All Right, Mr. DeMille . . .
This umbrella was left behind in a park where some of San Francisco’s wild parrot flock was foraging for dropped fruit in the grass.
The Penultimate Waxwing
Every Cedar Waxwing is the penultimate waxwing. Even though I think each image I snap in March or April will be the last of the season, invariably, another flock of waxwings descends for a photo op.
Parrot City
I haven’t visited my parrot people in recent weeks. The last time I saw them was on a mission for Parrot Patrol, checking up on them, making sure people were behaving around San Francisco’s finest.
Songbird the Impaler
Imagine you’re a songbird . . . but nature has mandated you dine like a raptor. What are you to do with those gentle little feet that should be talons? You develop a workaround. That’s what this little bird has done. I saw him in my periphery and noted the bright white breast and the…
Return of the Waxwings
It starts with a whistle, but a whistle so faint it’s a whisper across the leaves. And then the sound of raindrops, but it’s not rain. It’s the patter of falling berries, pyracantha and holly, dropping into the blanket of debris below the trees.
The Goldfinch and Thistle (A Pub With No Pints)
The Bay Area has a thistle problem, or so we hear, but goldfinches weren’t complaining on our hike yesterday. Here’s a photo of that Artichoke Thistle (Cynara cardunculus), taken last week in Tilden Park: And a few photos taken in Briones, where ongoing eradication has taken out bunches of the Artichoke Thistle in the grasslands:…
The Waxwings Are Back
I don’t know exactly how long they’ve been back, the Cedar Waxwings. Serious birders** know from the hour. I only know by the near-silent whistles that suddenly populate our trees. And I know because we got our first injured Cedar Waxwings at the hospital in the past two weeks — immobilized by window strikes. Today,…
