June 12: Crazy suburban birding

Sitting in the backyard in Irvine, trying to make friends with the new dog, Teddy, a "St. Bern-oodle," and all the sudden the birds are quiet. I hadn't thought much of it until an L.B.B. (Little Brown Bird) [probably a House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)] went flying across the yard. In hot pursuit was an accipiter on the hunt. They both went crashing into the Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens.) Twenty seconds later the accipiter, which was probably a Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii), flew back across the yard with the songbird gripped tightly in its talons. Lunch was served... or caught, rather.

As I update the title I recall a time last week, in San Ramon (NorCal suburbs) when Nick and I were stalking a hawk to find out that it was a Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). We scared a California Quail (Callipepla californica) but still heard lots of chirping... turns out that we found Mama's chicks and there were six little yellow and black-striped chicks running around in the underbrush of the median of the 6-lane road. We decided to leave the area so MamaQuail could get back to tending to her chickies. Nature is everywhere, even in the suburbs... we just gotta slow down and look at it!