Ruler of the roost

Hummingbirds are a frequent sighting around here, so we decided to get a feeder to attract them when the plants in the garden aren't flowering. The lady at Wild Bird Haven explained that a male hummingbird will probably find it and decide it's his and no one else can use it. Sure enough, someone turned up within hours and claimed it.

© 2013, J. White

He has taken up residence in a nearby tree and watches it faithfully. We've seen him chasing off other hummingbirds. He's not bothered by the scrub jays that hang around hoping for peanuts (guess he knows they're not interested in sugar water), but he's not too crazy about us being around it. Approach it,there's a steady chip-chip-chip sound coming from the tree.  Settle down, little guy, we're just trying to refill it. 

© 2013, J. White

These little guys sure can eat!

Most of the guests at our bird feeder are finches, probably 90-95% of them, with the occasional woodpecker or oak titmouse stopping by. I refill the thing every few days now, and it takes about 3-4 cups to fill -- that's a lot of seed.  How do these little guys eat so much?

Finches tend to dominate the feeder, but I happened to be looking out when a family of woodpeckers came a-calling. Two remained on the tree branch, while the third got some food, which he then seemed to feed to one of the waiting birds. On his second visit to the feeder though, he didn't share.  Eventually the two slightly larger birds set about pushing and pecking at the one who had been fed. I can only surmise that these two, like most parents of adolescents, had decided to tell the youngster it's time to get off his lazy behind and get his own food.

Peanut-lovin' jays

Western scrub jays are ubiquitous around here. You can hear their distinctive raspy chirps all over town. Cheee-eep. Cheee-eep. Wanting to be hospitable to all of our new neighbors, we inquired at the Wild Bird store and learned that jays like peanuts. So we started putting peanuts out each day. And then we learned that jays will take as many peanuts as you are willing to give them. Most of the time they don't eat the peanuts straightaway, they stash them for later. They'll grab one, stash it as quickly as possible,  and then keep coming back, looking for more.

The local jays quickly figured out that our french doors are a peanut dispensing station, so one sets up camp in the tree just outside the door, and another maintains a vigil atop the utility pole next door. As soon as the door opens, in they swoop.

Baby seagulls!

Fisherman's Wharf, Sunday afternoon about 2pm