Santa Ana NWR Trump Wall

For the past five years we have spent our winters in Alamo, Texas, less than ten miles north of the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is a major reason why we selected this location. 

Much, likely most, of the property along the border is privately owned. As the Federal Government already owns this land it would not be required to use eminent domain acquire the property. Therefore, someone who has likely never seen it, selected it as the site for the first section of the proposed Trump wall. The proposed wall will bisect the refuge and pretty much destroy it. 

Except for the last photo, these are typical photos I shot in the past couple of years. The last photo from two years ago is a first year Northern Jacana, a Central American or Caribbean bird which drifted north - a "life bird" for me and virtually anyone else who were lucky enough to see it.   

- Gunnar   :-(

A Warbler Showing

It was hot and humid this afternoon, so after dividing and transplanting some Hostas (never ending) and Irises, I sat in my chair in the shade of the Growlery with a camera in my lap. There was a intermittent progression of bathing birds escaping the heat. Occasionally I would shoot a couple of pictures, just because I had a camera and there were birds in front of it so I pulled the trigger. Just because. Chickadees, Wrens, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Goldfinches, etc - all the usual suspects. There are so many Goldfinches that I have to refill the thistle-seed tube feeder twice a week.

Wren

Cardinal, female, very wet

Goldfinch

Earlier this afternoon I had been wondering to myself why all those Warblers migrated through our yard and none stayed in Oakwood, not even those that should be nesting here. 

Then another female Goldfinch quietly slipped into the shadows of the upper stream. Wait, that isn't a Goldfinch! It is a Yellow Warbler. Actually Yellow Warblers and Goldfinches do not even look alike, except they are both small and yellow. How many times have I glanced at a Yellow Warbler and not really seen it?  

Gunnar, open your eyes! Er ... open your eye!

The Late, Great Strix varia

Strix the harbinger

guards the life gate, asking all, 
Whooo will pass this night?

At 1410 we normally sleep with our ears to an open window. Often shortly before dawn when we are floating out of sleep and about to hit the morning shore, we are awaken suddenly by the hooting calls of the Oakwood Barred Owls calling back and forth between mates - “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?”, or the screeching challenges to that pair of owlish interlopers who live across the bay in Oakhurst.

This weekend word came down from the Oakwood children that there was a dead owl beneath the playpark swings. It was a Barred Owl, wings at its side, not a feather askew. Of course Lorna retrieved the deceased bird body, and of course she bagged it up and put it in the freezer (next to the ice cream bars) - which is technically illegal I suppose "collecting wildlife for the purpose of ... " and more than a little creepy. 

The feathers are destined to dropped off at the Root River Rod Company to be tied into fishing flies (Dunns or Cahills?) - another illegality I imagine.

How did it die? Likely by natural causes, but the theory I like best is that it inadvertently called out it's own name and stricken, fell from the tree, stone dead before it hit the ground. It would seem to be the only logical explanation.

Breaking laws left and right. 

Ask not for whom the owl calls; it hoots for thee. - Gunnar

Chipping Sparrow Bathing

Some species of birds seem to love splashing about in the water and will take a long bath, shake it off and hop back in again - sometimes a number of times. My little stream has a series of four mini dams creating varying depth shallow pools for bathing options. I have been surprised at how the small birds often prefer very shallow water - shallow, like 1/8". 

"1410 Oakwood, Keeping the Bird World Clean For 30 years" - Gunnar

Cedar Waxwings

(and one black Gray Squirrel). A few shots of birds feeding in one of our Serviceberry trees this afternoon.

A beautiful afternoon, - Gunnar

"Ordinary" Oakwood Birds

Sometimes some things are so common we just don't appreciate how wonderful they really are.

Mid-afternoon yesterday I sat down in a chair outside the Growlery with a good beer, a cheap cigar and my camera. The following birds showed up in the next hour of two. There was also a Crow for a wingbeat, but I did not get a photograph. Earlier, maybe it was yesterday, Lorna took a photo of a pair of Waxwings in the stream. So far I have not been that fortunate, though admittedly she spends a lot more time camera chasing than I do. There are other birds in the yard - House Finches, Great-crested Flycatcher, Phoebes, Least Flycatchers and others - four species of Woodpeckers, for instance, that just don't seem to use the water. And things we hear but seldom see - Barred Owls, a couple of days ago a Black-crowned Night Heron was squawking down by the lake. 

The first photo is a little piece of the surrounding habitat. It may look woodsy, but a lot of the plants are not native. Most of the plants were transplanted from my main garden. Some of the hostas, an interest of mine I suppose, are two or three inch mature plants which seem in scale here.

Chipping Sparrow, adult and immature

Chipping Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow, immature, one week out of the nest.

The sun was coming and going all the time so the light settings were a little iffy. When the Catbird showed up the light was perfect. I am posting three photos, because I think they were the best of the day. A great bird. Or at least a very good bird.

House Wren

 Fireflies first showed up last night. Summer Solstice, right on schedule. ;-)   - Gunnar

1410 Catbird

This is a backyard bird that has been hiding from my camera all Spring - which is a bit irritating because it likely grew up in a nest right outside the Growlery window a couple of years ago. It can be spooky shy, but today it stepped forward, sucked up its courage, stepped out and presented itself to my camera. Thank you, 1410 Catbird. And an in-the-bushes "meow" to you too.

Meow, - Gunnar

Water feature system

For Butch:

I tried taking a video of the water like you did of your pool, but it was impossible; so here are a handful of sequence stills.

This began twenty years ago with a small galvanized "cow tank" to which I added a small pump and fountain, mostly for the birds. Over time rocks were stacked and plants were added. Now tank is behind a row of hostas. The back half of the tank is under rocks and some creeping plants; the front of the top is an access to a pump and filter.  Eventually I think I can completely conceal the tank.

The pump pushes water  up the hill in a concealed hose and accesses the rock garden "spring" under a a fairly large Creeping Yew.

 It flows out of a mini grotto, down a shallow stream birdbath ...

and spills over a tiny waterfall ....

... into a sunken pool, over a piece of petrified wood into a lower pool under the rocks that spills down into the tank.

- Gunnar

Magnolia Warblers

Magnolia Warbler. A prototypical warbler - beautiful, colorful, and flashy.