Wild Things

Their hard to see 'cause the little critters don't let me get close to them. Photos were taken through the window. First one is of a Harris Ground Squirrel flattened out on the ground in the shade trying to stay cool in our heat. Second is of one by a pot of flowers. These look kind of like a very pale colored chipmunk like is found in the mountains. 

A scaled quail coming in for water.

 An English house sparrow.

This roadrunner has been coming in ever day at about 2pm. Here he drank, jumped on post and across to another where you can only see his tail. We have had lots of rabbits, and some large rock squirrels, as well as coyotes, and lots of other birds. An owl calls every evening and part of the night.

Quail and Tomatoes

I wish I could get photos of the little quail that have been coming in every day to eat some of the left over tomatoes. I never figured quail would eat tomatoes. It is a sight to see when one of them grabs a small cherry tomato and the others chase the one with the tomato. And there are usually other tomatoes out there if they would just look for them. We still have a few of the left over tomatoes that we pulled back when it first froze. Then they were green but they have ripened and most didn't taste to good to us, and then they got over ripe. But the quail don't seem to mind. I have just been putting a few out every day so they don't freeze at night if the birds don't eat them. I haven't seen any of our other birds - sparrows, chick a dees, curved bill thrush, mockingbirds, doves, black birds, red headed house finches - eating the tomatoes. Those birds went after the apples and peaches. I didn't see the quail eating that many apples or peaches. But they sure do like those tomatoes, especially the little cherry ones that they can run away with.

Local Birds

some of the quail that stop by everyday for a drink of water and then go on their way. You can see the one quail going through the slightly larger space in the fence that we cut for them so they don't have to squish through the smaller spaces.

A raven that stopped by to chat with my mare the other day.