Wildlife

Spring and now summer are obviously in full swing with all the "baby" wildlife skittering around the neighborhood. The other day I helped a family of little tiny baby quail up a curb so they could join Momma and Papa quail. The new families are out and about ranging in size from two babies to over a dozen! Naturally the bunny population has exploded. Haven't seen any jack rabbit babies but plenty of the regular variety. Here's hoping the coot population doesn't return again this year. Last year we had thousands of them and the golf course had to take extreme action to whittle the population down. I understand they have joined forces with the wildlife people to help manage the population if they return again in large numbers.

Alpaca

Just around the corner from us is a fenced in space that is called SLO GO. We started to drive by the area because we discovered that the "back way" out of our development is a little shorter and actually is better on our Prius's gas mileage. The SLO GO is a haven for large tortoises and possibly small but we haven't seen any. A few days ago 4 alpaca appeared overnight and have been in the same pens ever since. They are very cute. They graze almost constantly and don't appear to have any issues with the tortoises and vice versa. So we have peacocks, mountain lions, cayotes, horses, buffalo, burros, cows, sheep, wild turkeys and millions of birds and now alpaca and tortoises!

Wild life

This morning was my turn to open the church. I arrived a little after 7 and went about the opening duties. Suddenly I heard loud cackling coming from behind the kitchen in the children's playground. I spied between 6 and 10 wild turkeys goggling away some displaying their tail feathers and some climbing about the playground equipment. Later on my rounds they had moved across the parking lot and looked like they were going to greet the early arrivals for the 8 AM service. Then as I returned to my car to wait for the service to begin I heard a lowing sound and in the pasture beside the church was a herd of cows that came down to munch on the beautiful green grass. Green mowing in action! On my way home after church I spied 3 of our long lost buffalo grazing in a field. We thought they had been moved but we hadn't seen them for a while. There had been a half dozen buffaloes but I only spied 3. Further up the road our little group or is it a herd of donkeys busily grazing in their usual spot. There were also many (and I'm sure many more to come) bunnies running back and forth across the street. What a morning!

Wildlife

The wildlife in the neighborhood is amazing. The quail are back in huge numbers. Most of them have paired off and I expect to see batches of baby quail shortly. The redwing blackbirds are also back in large numbers. Because this is a Signature Audobon preserve, we have birds of too many kinds for this uneducated watcher to name. Birds of all sorts are doing their best to attract partners. There are little bunny rabbits, jack rabbits and the ever ubiquitous gophers, ground squirrels. The animals here have no clue how good their lives are!

Chicken in a tree????

T and I went for a walk in town today and went in search of chickens. First we saw one big red rooster, then a large white chicken, and a pouffy grey one. We heard crowing but couldn't see another chicken until T looked up in a tree and there was this little guy. At the end of our walk the chicken lady (actually she's the cat lady who feeds the chickens so they will leave the kittens alone to feed) was feeding the chickens. There were about a dozen gathered around her with not a single duplicate in the bunch. There were many cats and of course a zillion pigeons.

T the big game hunter

Yesterday T was putting his gym stuff away when he spotted a baby lizard in the bedroom. As soon as he walked in the little fella scurried under the bed. T took out his hunting gear, a plastic bowl and magazine. Obligingly the lizard crept out from under the bed and T trapped the little fella in the plastic bowl. He carefully transferred him to the back yard. Now we're trying to figure out how he got in.

More wildlife

Today my daily walk took me to a neighborhood where there are many paddocks and pastures. At the end of the street I heard first than saw a flock of sheep being herded by a real working Australian shepherd dog. This sheep was being contrary and just wanted to graze. It had a tether around its neck so I think it might be a pet. The horse and pony are just 2 of the many horses that greeted me as I walked up and down the road.

Turkey anyone?

M & O live in Wellfleet in the summer. They've been reporting sightings of wild turkeys on Route 6 on the way to Provincetown holding up traffic as they cross. I remember the time I came across a flock of turkeys on the way to Providence when I was visiting K for one of her orchestra concerts at Brown. Of course no one believed me when I told them that this huge flock of turkeys blocked the road, and the traffic all stopped and patiently waited for them to cross. Well, M&O had proof of wild turkey sightings right outside their new living room slider!

plantings

I am slowly learning the names of the plantings around our house and neighborhood. Many of the plantings are pretty common, if I could only remember them! Aloe plants, begonias, birds of paradise, bougainvillea, california poppies, camellias, geranium, hydrangea, jasmine, lavender, rosemary, roses, yucca and all types of succulents all do very well here. We have a few varieties I hadn't seen before including california lilac aka ceanothus, heavenly bamboo, which isn't bamboo at all, lantana, Lily of the Nile, the New Zealand Flax pictured below in order.

Hiding in our lily of the Nile are often a couple of quail and at least one lizard. T has made friends with a particular lizard, at least we think it's the same one everyday. It comes out late in the afternoon and suns itself on the pavement. It's a fence lizard, also known as a blue-belly or swift lizard. Since it appears to live in the lily of the Nile, T has named it "tut"!

Has the world gone mad?

The local news has been covering the story of 3 elephant seals that were killed up in the preserve near San Simeon. Every year around this time the elephant seals return to the breeding grounds to molt. They stay a month as their new skin grows and the old skin falls off. Over the weekend someone with a high powered weapon shot 3 of the adults in the head. What a totally senseless act! They don't know if these killings are linked to the shooting of 4 California seals and 2 Steller seals that were found shot to death near Portland, Oregon. All species are federally protected.

Wildlife

Our development is designated an Audobon Signature Sanctuary, and there are many protected areas all around the place including our side and back yard. T enjoys observing the bird population that visits our back yard daily from mocking birds, and redwing blackbirds to owls and hawks and many varieties we don't know the names of. There is also a healthy population of lizards, snails, gophers, and moles (no squirrels that we've seen). The families of quails are particularly entertaining and the scores of coots are very troublesome, leaving droppings all over the golf course.There is also a large variety of larger animals as well. On our way to Santa Maria we saw a herds of buffalo, goats, sheep, llamas, horses and of course the contented California cows.