Nature Large and Small

Design - "Buzz" (kit)

Designer - Lizzie Kate

Fabric - 28 count Verdant over-dyed linen

Fibers - WDW & DMC - 2 strands over 2 threads

Started - 5 June 2015

Completed - 6 June 2015

Love, love, love the bright green linen.  I took this on a gardening bus trip Friday and stitched most of it while traveling from nursery to garden to nursery and back home again.

I've been watching the sky!

The evening of June 2nd a lovely large full moon rose up from the east.

And as the moon was rising, the International Space Station flew overhead from the SW to the NW on a long 6 minute arcing journey. 

The heat does not bother the tiny hummingbirds.  The female Rufous Hummingbirds are suddenly present in the Agastaches...

...and the Salvias.

They look very similar to the Anna's females, but have some brown feathers on their lower back and chest which the Anna's do not have.

I had a couple of them sharing a perch. 

My theory is that they have successfully raised their broods are now are 'free' from the constant feeding of baby birds. 

Apparently I am incapable of posting without including at least one photo of Cedar Waxwings!

Speaking of perching...this male California Quail found a perfect spot to survey his world from atop a small gate in our flowerbed.

He is quite puffed up and strutting his stuff.

And calling out to all the world that he is a mighty fine fellow.

I saw this bird a couple of days ago and decided it was a flycatcher or some sort.  But as it was far away and did not speak, it was hard to pin down an ID.  Fortunately, it came back the next day and talked and talked.  So with the help of All About Birds, and listening to audio clips of 'typical voices', I was able to figure out that it is a Willow Flycatcher. I learned that flycatcher songs are innate and not learned. If the birds are reared with another species they still sing 'their' species' song.

On the same day, I saw a group of three 'new' birds, but was only able to photograph one.  This is a Brown-headed Cowbird. The do not build nests, instead laying up to three dozen eggs in the nests of other birds; expecting foster parents to raise their young; often at the expense of the foster parents' own babies. Interestingly if a Brown-headed Cowbird lays its eggs in the nest of a Willow Flycatcher, the flycatcher then often buries the cowbird eggs in the nest lining, or will even build a completely new nest over the top of the first one outsmarting the Cowbirds!