It took awhile this morning to track down the Common Yellowthroat. I have two bird books here but neither had a photo that matched the little dude I saw with his black mask. Such a little cutie bird. Also looked up a really large orange bee that I’ve never spotted before. Turns out he’s not really native to this locale, more of a southern Cal kind of guy. After reading up on it, I think I’ve identified this bee as a male carpenter, except there were two of them chasing each other around….I kind of got the impression they were solo adventurers but there were definitely two of them.
This morning while I was peering out at the vineyard, a black headed Phoebe perched on the wire and peered back at me. She’s been a constant in our yard for months now. Usually we’ll hear her in the backyard about an hour before the sun sets and she gets her fill of bugs.
The photos are all stock pics I pulled off the web – the camera I have now would never be able to capture clear shots in my yard. While I was sitting up front the other day trying to identify the Common Yellowthroat I watched one of the crows that’s always hanging around chase off the Coopers Hawk. For a suburban neighborhood I get a lot of great bird traffic!