foomamablumbie

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Wildlife Update

We’re on the eastern edge of the canyon wren’s range, so it was exciting to find this new bird for the first time a few months ago. Darlyne has been hearing it sing outside her window for a while, wondering who that song belonged to. This morning it landed right in front of me and belted out its song–so much noise coming from such a little bird! I’m really happy that it has clearly made its home at Tedderhaven.
Lesser goldfinch. I just can’t get over how intense their colors are.
We knew we had at least two golden-fronted woodpecker babies. But as they have matured, measured by the depth of color and the definition of their head markings, new young have appeared (easy to distinguish because their head markings are faint), so it’s clear that the parents have raised more than one clutch of young. It’s such a dramatic bird, and not in the least skittish, so we see it all the time at the deck feeder, even when we are sitting right there.
Every time I see this bird I get excited because it’s so pretty and it’s something new, so I quickly take a photo (this one is blurry) and later look it up. And every single time it turns out to be a . . . house sparrow, described as ubiquitous. I can guarantee that this cycle will continue.
Rock squirrels are just weird looking, if you ask me.
The yacht club has sailing lessons; there is a teacher with a bullhorn and the kids in their little boats. They looked like they were doing very well.

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More birds and other wildlife at Tedderhaven

Stick insect, about 8″ from tail to tip of antenna
That face!
Young golden-fronted woodpecker; he hasn’t grown his colors all the way yet
There are two young woodpeckers; this is the female. She will have a yellow patch and an orange patch, and the male will have an additional red patch on his head.
House finch, taking a break from feeding his insistent young
Young chickadee with unruly feathers
Black crested titmouse

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Research activity

Three boats, all the same make and general appearance, with a lot of young people with a definite grad student vibe
Serious looking wake board boots! Also spotlights.
This guy was in the water the whole time we watched. He had a piece of equipment with him, but it didn’t look like he had diving gear.
I didn’t stick around to find out what happened after this. Also, there was a different boat that had a weird platform the width of the boat about four feet up–like an observation platform but it would have felt terribly unstable to be up there. I forgot to take a picture of it.

Thanks to Mom getting my attention with the hose (I was vacuuming the plunge pool, obliviously listening to a podcast), we got some photos of this very interesting activity right in front of the house this morning. Pretty sure it was research of some sort; all the boats were the same, just different colors, and the people looked like they were either waiting or else acting purposefully. Plus equipment!