After our brief visit to the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, and after we recovered from the heat of that day, we decided to return there during the week to join the bird walk to see if we what we could learn and find.
We did learn that out of the four owlets we observed the last time we were there, only two had survived, although, we did not hear what happened to them. We did not find any of them on our walk.
We did not see a ton of birds on our walk. I think that most of the birds are staying deep in the tree where it is more shaded as it is quite hot out nowadays. We heard a few birds, including the elusive Blue Grosbeak, but did not see it. I did finally get a glimpse of Lucy's Warbler. We often hear it but can never spot it in the trees.
There were still a decent amount of birds at the feeders looking for food and water. The Blue Grosbeak, however, still did not show up.
We did discover a family of Cooper's Hawks prowling around though. They were not in the tree that some of the birders usually see them in, but they did come in to terrorize some of the smaller birds eating at the feeders several times while we were there. I'm not sure if they captured any of them, as all the birds pretty much scatter when they arrive, but they hung about for quite some time.
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We went by the San Jacinto Wildlife Area once again to see who might be out and about. Most of the marshes lay dry and empty apparently this time of year. I think they only have a few of marshes that still have water. The road to the lake has been closed off for some reason so we don't really have ready access to it. It is a long walk in this heat to get to it otherwise.
We found a tree with a great many little birds in it, but we had to really work for them. They were difficult to find and harder to capture. We knew heard the Common Yellow-throats in there and the Blue Grosbeak once again. I was able to get the Common Yellow-throat and Christian managed to get a few shots of the Blue Grosbeak at last. I still have not been able to get a glimpse of the elusive bird.
There seemed to be a great many birds that showed a flash of yellow as it darted in and out of the trees. We saw some Lesser Goldfinches, Kingbirds, a Northern Yellow Warbler and the common Yellowthroat. We would have stayed out there longer but the heat was really unrelenting and the heat haze was ruining many of our shots, so we called it a day.
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For Father's Day, we went for a drive out to the Rodman Mountains. Emily drove as our Jeep is still out of commission. Actually, first we had all washed and waxed her car. then Christian helped her change the oil on it as it was due for a change. We had not looked into it when she got home since we were all so busy and she's been driving back and forth every weekend since. So it was a bit of a shame to take it out and get it dirty immediately, but it was nice to be able to go out and enjoy the newly cleaned and tuned vehicle. After we washed and waxed my Trooper, it sat in the driveway for several days. By the time I had a chance to take it out, it was already covered in a layer of dust!
We originally headed out to the area to go birding at the Mojave Narrows Regional Park. It's not really the type of place we normally go as they charge just to park there but we heard good things about the birding there and decided to check it out. We regretted it immediately. Not only do they charge for parking, but they charge more on the weekends to take advantage of people who finally have time to go out. And there was a long queue to even get to the kiosk. Before very long, we decided that we definitely didn't want to wait in line to pay to get in. That was way too crowded and unpleasant for us, so we turned about and left. Several other cars had the same thought. It was rather ridiculous.
So, that's when we headed out to the Rodman Mountains. We'd been there before but we thought we would take Emily out there and we could get a bit of space and some peace and quiet.
I was a bit disappointed to not be able to check out a new birding area but we did see a few birds including an Ash-Throated Flycatcher and a Lesser Nighthawk. That last one was quite a nice find as it was just resting on the ground. If you just glance over, you would think that it was just another rock until you saw it looking back at you! That was actually pretty exciting. We also saw more of the Black-throated Sparrows.
We wanted to do more birding, but it was getting late and we wanted to hit the Ludlow Cafe to grab some dinner. We knew that they did not have late hours. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was still closed. I think that if they don't have vey much business, they just end up closing early, so it is very difficult to plan like that. I don't know if they will be able to stay open much longer.
Disappointed, we headed home. There was nothing else out there that enticed us. We ended up grabbing some carne asada burritos back in Riverside, which thankfully, were still pretty good, although, much more expensive than they used to be...like everything else.
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At the end of the month, we made it back to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area once more. It was however, desperately hot. There are not so many different kinds of birds there at this time of the year. A lot of Red-winged Black Birds and White-faced Ibis with some Egrets here and there.
There were some smaller birds but they were extremely hard to find. Once again, the Blue Grosbeak was out there somewhere but I was not able to capture it. It was so very frustrating. We love coming here but we may have to take a break until the fall if the birds are moving on to places with more water. Plus, it is so miserably hot here that we don't quite have as much patience to wait the birds out. I guess we will see.
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At home, Emily's chickens are growing quickly. They almost look like adult chickens already. I have discovered that while we have a lot of birds coming to our bird feeder, it is not the reason the bird seeds seem to disappear so quickly these days. We've had another animal that has been raiding the bird feeder.
While I didn't mind it quite so much if a squirrel picks up some of the bird food that drops from their feeder, I do mind it climbing down to the feeder itself and inhaling all the birds seeds. Actually, I had a ground feeder that I suspected might attract the squirrel and only put a little food in there each day when I knew the birds were most active, otherwise I left it empty. But I woke up one morning to look out and see the squirrel deftly raiding the bottle feeder and went out to chase it away. It planned to just wait up higher in the Madrone until I walked away to return to his meal. I took a few swipe with a stick in his direction to try to get him to leave and even shook the tree until it jumped out into the Camphor tree instead. It was chittering loudly at me and flicking his tail in an agitated way. It was a little scary and creepy actually. He wanted to just climb down to our driveway but I wouldn't leave, so it went the other direction towards our neighbor's yard and jumped down one of the overhanging branches from there and ran across the street from there. I stayed a little longer to see if it would return once more. I think that it stayed over there a while watching before it finally went away. I don't know if he return occasionally, but the seeds have not gone down nearly as quickly as it had been. I've been putting some peppermint oil at the top where he gains access to the feeder to hopefully discourage it from returning.
Bird seed is not as cheap as it used to be and I am putting it out there to attract birds to my yard, not squirrels!
The birds, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying the new water source.
They are certainly going to need it in this heat. Also, we were excited to confirm that we have five different kinds of hummingbirds coming in to our feeders! Here is a Black-chinned Hummingbird trying to claim one of the feeders as his own. There was a Costa that was most dominant here before. I don't know if he lost the power struggle or not but there are a lot of different hummingbirds using this feeder.
The feeder nearest the kitchen window has been long dominated by an Anna's Hummingbird. He expends a lot more energy protecting what he thinks is his feeder. Other hummers fly in and gets drinks occasionally when he is preoccupied or away but not as many. He is a vicious little thing but stands no chance when the Oriole's swoop in. That feeder has the widest holes for the Oriole's so they prefer that one, much to the annoyance of the dominant Anna's.
We have continued to work on and improve the yard when we can stand the heat. Christian has also been trying to clean up the mess in the garage. He has also been taking and gathering pictures of Emily and her various projects for Caitlyn who is working on a website for her senior project which she has to build and present next month.
