Michael H. Lester

The Circus Is In Town

The Circus Is In Town

I am witness to some especially exciting hawk activity in the backyard this morning, along with a circus of dark-eyed juncos, mockingbirds, Black Phoebes, California Towhee’s, house finches, and squirrels. The hawk startles an adult squirrel, who has been camping out on the squirrel-proof feeder, sphinxlike, for nearly half an hour, into a sudden and urgent leap to safety in the neighbor’s magnolia grandiflora. The feeder swings madly back and forth from the shock.

An Unexpected Gift

A black phoebe has taken a liking to our backyard, perching variously on the spent orchid stem, the tomato plant cage, the long slender stem of the Agapanthus, and the telephone wire. She visits often throughout the day, feeding on the small yellow moths she spies in the grass, swooping down to snatch them and gliding back up to her perch to swallow them.