By Mary Ann Lower and Julie Vogel

It has been an eventful spring. Early I spotted a pair of Red Whiskered Bulbuls, a first for me. They must have been nesting nearby, as I saw and heard them all season. Next our ravens returned daily, in the carrotwood tree, enjoying the large berries, in spite of the 'gang' of mocking birds dive bombing them and hissing away. It went on all afternoon for all of a month, and then one day in June they all vanished. The mourning doves nested in our staghorn ferns. The usual exposed "nest" of a few weeds and mom was on it and produced two eggs. She and her mate are calm, allowing us to get very close, checking up on her progress. This pair nested four times this year (some years only two or three). Their matings produced two chicks who fledged after 16-18 days. One produced only one healthy youngster. The last nest emptied on August first. Both juveniles are still in the yard, attended by the parents. They coo all day. I work very hard to keep our big retrievers away from them.

The most amazing event, was the nesting of a pair of wrentits. I've never seen them in our yard before! They built a nest deep in a staghorn fern, and we watched them bring nest material for many days, and then bring insects and little worms all day. Before we knew it, they too were gone. When we were sure about that, we cut into the plant and removed the little nest, so carefully built with soft strings, dryer lint and dog hair. There were two little eggs left. One of my bird guides said that wrentits produce 4-5 eggs, so I'm hoping 2-3 little chick survived. We never saw them unfortunately. Julie and I hope they return next spring. I had the nest framed with the eggs.

Today my daughter Julie saw a bird fly in the front yard. She looked it up and decided it was a Pyrrhuloxia. Because it is unlikely, and the Sibley says they are in the desert east of South Pasadena it's even more unlikely. I will show her a Bulbul tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Birding in our yard has helped us spend happy times, during this Covid lockdown. I hope we can spend time like this all year, and in years to come.

*Courtesy of www.patch.com/california/southpasadena*

I didn't remark about the big flock of parrots!! They are always with us! Eating the berries in the hackberry trees We have quite a few in our yard and the neighbors yards as well. the whole flock of 40-50 roost in the palm trees a block away.

They make such a racket, it is amazing that we don't even notice some days. That is, until we get into our cars that are generously splattered with berry hulls, leaves and big splats of guano. The birds are very beautiful and fun to watch however. We amaze our out of state friends with them.

This spring we have lots of butterflys. It must be due to the large amounts of native California plants Julie has put in our landscaping.

I'm a retired nurse/social worker, worked for the LA County Dept of Mental Health. Raised my children in the Crescenta Valley and La Canada. Growing up in Santa Barbara, my father pointed out birds, mostly big ones such as hawks, gulls, pelicans and condors. Yes there were condors in SB county in those days! Julie learned about birds on camping-backing trips and continues to see, and identify them. We are next door to one another. She is a costume designer working mostly on TV commercials. We have two big dogs that seen uninterested in birds, even though both are retrievers. I belong to LA Audubon, Pasadena Audubon and Tucson Audubon. People can reach me at lowersopas@sbcglobal.net

Published by Los Angeles Audubon Society, Western Tanager, Vol. 87 No. 1, Sep–Oct 2020.