Summer’s for the Birds

Irvington 8

Somehow, it doesn’t seem to be summertime until you hear that first lazy drone of a plane while you’re lying on your back basking in a clear, blue morning. We’ve not heard many planes of a morning here because the dawn chorus is downright raucous! Not only house sparrows and waxwings but gray warblers, finches, phoebes, robins, and starlings abound…. and then, of course there are the hummingbirds and Hrafen, Morrigan and Bran, the crows. (They looked through the skylights on our first day in this house and helpfully announced themselves while eying us like they were watching People Planet.)

Given all the garden and fruit trees, this house is Summer Bird Central (obviously; someone had to eat all the cherries and menace the squirrels over the apricots and glower at us over the plums), and it’s both a joy and a pain. The crows leave cherry pits underfoot, the hummingbirds wage war and explode into shrieking fits if we so much as set foot in the yard on the way to the garage. The phoebe, of course, is the most social of birds, unbothered by our coming and going, and hopping over closer when we come out. They do complain if we don’t pick up rocks or shift fruit off of the ground every time we’re out of doors – the phoebe are fairly convinced that we only exist to disturb the dirt to kick up bugs for them. (They may be right… so far, we exist to forget that fountains have to be run and maintained in order to prevent mosquito larvae! The phoebes are feasting, but we’re getting mosquito dunks posthaste. We have enough problems without extra bloodsuckers! And, if you, like us, didn’t know, the mosquito dunks we found ONLY kill mosquito larvae and are safe for tadpoles and everything else.)

Balboa Park 36

We found these little guys the other weekend in Balboa Park. We were walking through the gorgeous Japanese Friendship Gardens there, and they were quietly stuck around the back of one of the little art gallery. We share them here to remind you to look for the unnoticed – and to pause in gratitude for the abundance of the season – even if it’s an abundance of hot days and loud birds who decorate your lawn chairs. Despite the grim news cycle, may your heart still find hope, and may your hands stay busy doing what you can.

2 Replies to “Summer’s for the Birds”

  1. Reading backwards once again, until I’ve caught up with you both. I see the date on this post and think that we’d just left San Diego not too much before that. So much has changed since then. The descriptions of your backyard birds make me smile! And noticing what’s easily overlooked is a highlight of each and every one of my days.

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