I have had a few unusual or fun bird sightings so I decided to make this page so I could share them with you as they come up. The first few entries don't have dates because I remember the intances but not the dates. I'll add dates to my entries in the future.

Posted 12- 17- 97
First of all you all have to realize that I live in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It is a big desert and the whole area is very dry so you can imagine my suprise when I saw a Great Egret on a recent drive to Wal Mart. The street goes over a wash that is usually dry but during "heavy" rains there might be a little water in it. At first I thought I saw a white plastic bag caught on a weed but when I drove home I took a closer look and it really was a majestic white bird poking around the wash, presumably for food. Since that time I have seen it four other times. Of course, I don't know that it is the same bird but it is hard for me to believe that the Mojave Desert is the home of very many of these beautiful birds.

A while back I had a strange visitor to my feeders. It was a black bird with large brown splotches on it. I looked and looked in my bird books trying to figure out what it was. It came twice a day to my feeders, alone. Several kinds of birds came to mind but all the birds I could think of flew in flocks and this bird was always alone. Finally after about three weeks a large flock of these same birds landed on my feeder eating everything in sight. Twice a day they came, a large flock of mixed blackbirds and cowbirds that matched my mystery bird exactly. The flock hung around for three weeks and finally headed south again leaving me with peace and quiet and a good store of bird seed for the sparrows and finches.

About a week ago I was sitting at my computer just as I am now. My sheltie was standing at the door asking to come in. I glanced his way and as I did I saw a brown object flutter in front of his face and fall to the ground. Danny absent-mindedly snapped at it. I thought it was a leaf from my neighbor's tree, since fall comes so late to southern California, but the "leaf" fell to his feet and started hopping around. Once again Danny snapped at it and I realized that it was a tiny, brown bird. I quickly opened the door a crack and tried to coax Danny in but he was now more interested in the bird than in coming in the house. I didn't want to open the door much because I was afraid the bird would get loose in the house. An arm stuck through the crack managed to shoo the bird away from the door but every time we did Danny got more curious about it. The bird had a few close calls before we were able to pull the dog into the house. The bird found a safe spot between the sliding doors but that made opening and closing the door risky. I was afraid of crushing little toes in the door. Finally, my daughter slipped outside and scooped up the dazed bird. It apeared unhurt so we quickly snapped a picture of it and let it go where no dogs would disturb it. If the picture comes out I'll have it scanned and put it up on this page. We don't know what kind of a bird this was. Looking at the birds that come to my feeders I would say it was much smaller than a house sparrow but I can't think of what wild birds live around here that are that small. It will have to remain a mystery because our little friend quickly flew away and learned a valuable lesson about staying away from dogs. Kristen was so excited about holding the bird in her hands that she was still hyper the next day, sharing her story with whoever would listen.

One day my neighbor called and asked me to quickly come over to her house. There was a quail in her yard, she said. I went over real quick and she pointed to a medium sized brown bird in the garden behind her pond. Quail are common around here but are not usually found in the backyards of houses in town. I quickly identified it as a Western Meadowlark, one of my favorite birds. I wish it had sung for her because their song (or is it a call?) is so pretty. I used to get five or six meadowlarks in my yard at a time but then we weeded and planted grass and the meadowlarks dissappeared. I miss them, but not enough to turn my yard into a desert again.

August 25, 1998

About 4 months ago I bought one of those little bridfeeder attachments that you screw onto a 2 litre bottle. I filled it with seed and put it just outside the sliding glass door next to my computer. Even with all the birds coming and going to my other feeders and feeders in my neighbor's yard it took the birds  four months to discover this new feeder. I am happy to say that I now have several sparrows who visit me regularly while I work and play on my computer. Now I am discovering that these little bird feeders are a bit too little. Only one bird at a time can eat from it and this leads to squabbles. Maybe I need to upgrade.

This summer I took a trip to my old hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico and was happy to see the great blue herons are still wading around in the Rio Grande River. I always enjoyed seeing them there.

We also went camping this summer and got inundated with Stellars Jays. We always bring peanuts for them but sometimes they carried away and claim our potato chips too. Since these aren't good for them we have to lock them up.

October 13, 1998

My family took a quick weekend trip to Disneyland and Long Beach. I enjoyed watching the ducks at Disneyland. We saw lots of birds at Long Beach. Although I didn't get to photograph it it was very interesting watching the penicans dive into the harbor for fish! We saw many shore birds. Here are a few of them!
 

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