Breakfast of the Cormorants

 

Shortly after dawn this morning I was walking Edie along the shoreline of the old naval air station, when I noticed a large, circling flock of dark birds overhead.

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Wondering Where Your Robins Are?

It began when the missus and I went up to Mendocino for Thanksgiving. Our friends were staying in Little River, on the coast, and as we drove to the house they were renting we drove through a meadow full of robins.

Mrs. O exclaimed that she had never seen so many robins at one time in her life. Many dozens of them, more than we could count, flew up into the cypress trees along the road!

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We Change Planes in Albuquerque

It’s morning in our Caribbean Beach resort hotel room, a gray day outside, which somewhat fits the mood as we pack and prepare for shuttle buses, airports, metal detectors, and long flights inside fancy aluminum tubes.

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Dreaming of Floridian Woodpeckers

The missus and I are going to Florida again. She’s very excited about the trip. Last night she dreamt the two of us were in Florida and had spotted a beautiful woodpecker in a tree, and that we were watching the woodpecker circling the tree, hammering away at it, extracting amazing bugs from under the bark. Then she woke up.

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Birds of Winter

I noticed some bird species I hadn’t seen for a while during my dawn dog walk this morning. It’s the fall migration, and we have a storm system coming through (chance of thunderstorms tonight), so they’re probably traveling ahead of the turbulent weather.

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Coopers Hawks

I’ve seen the hawks in our neighborhood more often lately. At first glance and moderate distance I always assume they are red-tailed hawks, just because red-tails are the most common. With the wide open areas of the former naval air station runways nearby, it’s good red-tail habitat.

And then I noticed the body shape, long and lanky, with short wings, and I realized it’s a sharpy or a Cooper’s.   

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Tern! tern! tern! to springtime

 One of the nice things about starting my day by walking the dogs along the bay shoreline out at the former naval air station is watching the birds out over the water.

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Rockin’ Robin, tweet, tweet, tweet!

It started with my friend a couple weeks ago. We walk our dogs together weekend mornings, and he asked if I’d noticed all the birds singing to greet the dawn.

 I hadn’t. 

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Mama Mallard and Her Ducklings

About three weeks ago, during the morning dogwalk along the shore out at Alameda Point, I saw them for the first time. Two adult mallards and a pair of the tiniest little ducklings paddling along amidst a loose assortment of gulls in the cove formed by the long arm of the rock wall.

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A perhaps odd attempt at brightening your day

Every so often something happens to remind you that, however bad you think things may be, at least we’re unlikely to be reduced to links in the food chain.

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