I will never understand why people do stuff like this. I remember my first trip through Yellowstone many years ago, traffic was stopped on one of the roads, and it turned out to be because there was a mama black bear and cub off the side of the road up ahead. And people were parking and getting out of their cars with their kids in tow to go get a closer look.
That stopped traffic?
It’s called a “Bear Jam.”
It’s called “people losing touch with nature”. 
Much more mundane but nice to see - out today near Lingfield, the first lambs of the year. Rotten photo, but the sun was awkward and I couldn’t see what I was doing; plus I didn’t want to approach any closer and disturb the guys…
Lammies! So cute.
Different subject and… actually, this intrigues me. Since our neighbor’s elderly dog died a few months ago, the slight deterrent to foxes that she represented (the dog, I mean) is gone; and our yard has become a fox highway. But the actual highway is remarkably well defined:
How 'bout that? They are so consistent about where they walk they’ve worn a path - well, actually two paths. The one diagonally across the frame leads from a gap where the fence and a wall (out of shot don’t quite meet. It leads around the house, across the back yard, between some raised beds and to a point where they have dug under the fence. The second path starts at the same point, runs in front of the beds, and leads directly to a dense line of rhododendrons where they can hide. We assume they track through the rhododendrons, which lead to the shed. There are two earths behind the shed (well, one is under it), so either that’s where the path ends, or they exit the garden as path 1 or some other way.
Weird, huh?
j
In the summer we have numerous chipmunk paths like your fox paths. I always wonder how many times a creature that weighs around 5 ounces has to run back and forth to make an actual path!
Last weekend “the squirrel guy” from the wildlife center set up his blind. He let it stand for a few days, then he spent two weekdays observing the squirrel population.
Today he is returning with a crew to mount some kind of nest in a tree. There will be fox squirrels in the nest!
Yesterday we kept hearing an unfamiliar “kak kak kak kak” sound outside. We went to see, and it was a hawk up in our sycamore tree. I checked him out - red eyes, undersides of wings were striped in black and white. I looked him up on the 'net, and he’s a Cooper’s hawk.
He hung around in the tree all afternoon long, just chilling and occasionally calling. I think there might be a hawk’s nest in our adjoining redwood trees, judging by how he was lingering and not hunting. Our two redwood trees have gotten quite huge in the 24 years we’ve lived here, and they’ve become a magnet for all kind of critters: great horned owls, raccoons, squirrels, and nesting doves. Well, if hawks move in to nest, all the other wildlife will probably vamoose.
Breeding season for Cooper’s hawks can start as early as March in CA 
. Males will start getting territorial and defending potential good nesting sites prior to forming a mating pair.
Pretty cool. He mounted this in a tree. The hole was plugged with an edible wad of stuff. He also left food scattered around the tree’s base.
Then we all left. Two hours later I walked by and the plug was gone! We will continue putting food at the base of the tree for 3 days, what the rehabbers called a “soft release”.
It looks like that’s the case here. Now I’ve seen him repeatedly flying into the top of our bushiest redwood tree. He has also been spotted doing more lingering in the immediate area, perching on nearby lampposts and doing his kak-kak-kak call. I hope he finds a mate and they nest. It’d be cool to have a hawk nest in our tree, just outside our bedroom window.
Checked the “squirrel tree” this morning and all the food was gone. Left day #2’s food (actually different than day 1 or 3).
Various styles of soft & hard release.
White breasted nuthatch at a local park:
Also saw but couldn’t get a picture of a red-bellied woodpecker.
We’ve got house finches nesting in the roosting pockets under the porch eaves and they predictably bitch at us whenever we dare to come out on our own porch.
The Carolina wrens and cardinals are also doing a lot of general yelling.
The pear tree has exploded into bloom and it’s loaded with honeybees. We’re having a debate about that tree. My husband says when it blooms it stinks, which would brand it as a Bradford pear (they want flies as their pollinators so the blooms release a smell that attracts flies). To me, the blooms barely smell like anything at all, much less smell bad, and I am seeing almost all honeybees at the flowers. So, I dunno.
The peach trees are starting to pop, and our one stupid blueberry bush is in full bloom. The smarter one is holding off.
I’m wondering if this might be like cilantro? My neighbor next door has a tree that looks like Bradford pear, but I’ve never smelled anything. And there are a lot of Bradford pear trees around town but again, I have never smelled anything
Maybe - though my husband always jokes that he can only smell things that smell bad, so maybe he’s just more attuned than I am.
We hiked through a grove of them Monday. I didn’t think they stank, but they did have an unpleasant odor.
A purple crocus is blooming in my yard. It’s been doing that for years, although I never planted it and neither did the family that lived here before us. Presumably a squirrel buried the bulb.
Mrs Magill and I have rented a cabin at Cedars of Lebanon State Park. Yesterday we hiked about six miles.
Cutleaf Toothwort
Arkansas Yukka
A watering hole I don’t think I would want to drink from.
A sinkhole. It looked about twenty feet deep.
A bunch of moss covered limestone. It looked much cooler in person.