Rain all week, plus wildlife

[gs_silva]

I am on the catio! It rained all night and it's going to rain again soon, and it's pretty cold out here actually. But the garden is coming to life.

The blue jays are screaming at something just out of sight in the woods. Possibly the fox. I heard something large rustling leaves a few minutes ago, but foxes are very good at being silent. So maybe she pounced on some prey in the leaf litter and then went back to stealth.
There are bobcats too. I haven't seen any actually in my neighborhood, but there's no reason for them not to be.
The cardinals with their "wheat wheat wheat" that sounds like a generic bird tweet until you learn to identify it as a cardinal call, and then it forever sounds distinctly cardinal.
The crows but they're not nearby.
The flicker now with its kind of barking noise, and the squeaky toy! Nuthatch! And some other woodpecker, I forgot which one. Time to brush up on my woodpeckers.
The red squirrels are out! One is on my neighbor's patio! They don't usually come this close to the houses but I guess when you're hungry you do what you have to.
A flock of juncos just passed through, bush-hopping. I was about to conjecture that they were gone for the season but not yet.

That's enough for now. The cold finally got to me and there's laundry to be done and boring stuff like taxes. I'm watching the news and somehow it doesn't make me feel like paying taxes...somehow...

ETA: The sun came out and so I was able to clear out a lot of buckthorn and bittersweet. Also talked to my neighbor on the other side and did some planning with him about how to coordinate our gardening efforts.

I taught my mother how to recognize and dig up ajuga. She'll need a lot of reinforcement, but if she takes to this task, she may eradicate the ajuga infestation! She's very, very thorough but she needs to commit to a single task, and while that's not necessarily the best personality type for gardening, we'll make it work.

I saw a turkey buzzard and a smallish hawk, to add to my bird list today.

Comments

[moth2fic]

We have foxes. And squirrels though in this area they're the grey ones which we are asked to regard as vermin. They're not indigenous and they take over from the reds which have a more limited range of food etc. Different birds. Magpies, starlings, blackbirds, European robins, occasional song thrushes and fewer sparrows than formerly. Also, pigeons and wood pigeons.

Daughter and partner have set out for Blackpool. An early birthday treat for J's eighteenth. It's a gorgeous day so they should all enjoy themselves.

[gs_silva]

I'd love to have our gray squirrels back! A lot of Americans also consider them pests, but those people are wrong. They belong here.

HBD to J! We had an early celebration for D, too. A steak dinner. Wasn't that fancy, but also wasn't cheap. Nothing's cheap. We were hoping to keep this birthday low-key, but seemingly small gifts add up. Makes me miss Asia even more.

[moth2fic]

HBD to D too! I'd forgotten our kids are twins though you did mention the dinner. The grey squirrels were imported here, or were stowaways!
We're taking J to a safari and theme park with an overnight stay in a lodge overlooking the cheetahs. That's in the Easter holiday and is not cheap but will hopefully be memorable!

[wantedonvoyage]

I would like to be better at identifying birds, both visually and by sound.

[gs_silva]

I still rely heavily on the internet - living abroad for 9 years made me pretty rusty! And I see different birds these days than the ones I saw last time I lived in the US, with some overlap. Used to be more shorebirds because I lived near the sea.