Birds and bees, turtles, flowers

[Lisa Millbank]

Today Don and I took a walk through Starker Park, up the hill to the Oak Lawn cemetery, down to Marys River Natural Area, and back on 49th St.  There were lots of flirtatious birds out there today.  A male NORTHERN HARRIER was impressing his intended with a series of acrobatic climbs and dives.  She did seem to appreciate his courtship display and flew up to him, and they soared upwards and drifted out of sight.  A couple of pairs of RED-TAILED HAWKS were also courting, making their "Osprey cry" and the males were dangling their legs, which apparently is a romantic gesture, I guess.  Groups of NORTHERN FLICKERS did their "wuck-a wuck-a wuck-a" and Pileated-like series of calls with posing, tail fanning, drumming and frolicking.  A pair of COOPER'S HAWKS were calling from the riverside maple forest.  A WESTERN SCRUB-JAY was gathering nesting material.  We visited Peanut Queen and Mr. Shy (scrub-jays) this morning, but they didn't appear to be thinking about their nest yet, just the peanuts we brought!  A pair of WESTERN BLUEBIRDS were inspecting one of our new bluebird boxes at Starker Park.  A pair of AMERICAN KESTRELS called frantically and dive-bombed a Red-tail, but eventually gave up trying to make him move.  A pair of BUSHTITS were apart from their flock, so we figured they were a couple.  Everywhere we went, there was singing; it was a real spring-like day among the birds.  Oh, and there were honeybees buzzing around, so it really was the birds and the bees.

Not all was sweetness and light among the birds.  I saw a male AMERICAN WIGEON try to mount a female, who was not interested.  She turned around and grabbed his wing in her beak and held on as he tried to run away.  And while some SPOTTED TOWHEES seemed to have content partnerships, there was also a lot of full-blown fighting between males.  We watched them violently tumble in the bushes, chase one another, sing, and display by spreading their wings and tails.  A SONG SPARROW chased his rival away and then popped up to sing triumphantly.  There were duels of song, like when two male BROWN CREEPERS peeped their little song at one another in the fiercest possible way, and BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE males alternated between their whistled song and their liquid aggression call.  It all sounded cute to us but we knew it was serious business for the combatants.

Along Brooklane Dr. the Western Pond Turtles were out sunbathing!  Today was the first time we've seen them this year.  We also saw our first California Ground Squirrel of the year, as they're the only hibernators among our squirrels.  I attached a picture of Western Gray Squirrel tracks.  In the woods along the river, we saw Spring Beauty (Cardamine nuttallii) and Yellow Wood Violet (Viola glabella) blooming.  All kinds of leaves have poked up in the forest: camas, delphinium, fawn lily, meadow-rue, trillium, bleeding-heart, fairy bells, and many more. We also picked a few Stinging Nettle tops (see Don's post).

Lisa

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