Our nature journaling trip to Santa Cruz Island was cancelled by the transportation company due to strong winds. Instead, we climbed the Sulphur Mountain Road Trail and journaled frogs, jumping spiders, mutant acorns, wood rat nests, and more. I saw my first northern harrier! What a lovely day with kindred spirits.
The kids and I went for a wander by Freshwater Creek, them to play, me to count birds. We had some debate about whether the black-and-white bird whose mud nest Felix found was a peewee or a magpie-lark. We were both right.
We also saw (or heard) tawny frogmouths, pied currawongs, rainbow lorikeets, grey shrike-thrushes, spangled drongos, noisy miners, rock pigeons, brush-turkeys, crows, wood ducks and purple swamp hens.
To my delight, a house finch couple has spent the last few days building a nest in the cypress tree outside our kitchen window. We can’t see the nest — it’s tucked into the tree’s interior — but it’ll be fun to see the birds come and go as they breed and feed.
hashiworks 