New species movin' in - we counted our 78th this past weekend, through grueling toil up hill and down dale. Actually, we just looked out the kitchen window and spied some Steller's Jays moving into the spring area below the ranch house. These jays aren't exactly strangers to California, but we hadn't seen them around here before, so hot diggity dog! We'll have to see if they become permanent residents or not, because that spring was already claimed by some scrub jays, so we were listening to an amazing amount of jay-talk over the weekend. An interesting tidbit - these jays imitate the calls of hawks, particularly red-tails, so that red-tail I thought I heard yesterday upon waking may have been a jay. Alternately, it could have been a red-tail because one of those was observed on top of the big pine above said spring. Don't you just love a mystery?
Photo: US Fish and Wildlife
1 comment:
A couple of weeks ago I heard what I thought was the distinctive raucous call of a Stellar's. Never did see the bird, but your seeing one confirms that they're here in our little valley. Thanks for the post.
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