What a law-abiding, considerate deer!
what kind of deer is that? It has such a thin tail, our white-tailed deer have big fluffy tails.
That is a Mule Deer. There were a few keeping my grass down this morning:
These two were young bucks, with velvet on their antlers.
I think it is a mule deer. We have white tails (big fluffy) but mule deer have a small tail tipped in black.
ETA: Deer Ninja’d!
Yesterday I took the dogs over to the pond to play and a Great Blue Heron took off! What a beautiful bird taking flight! According to my gf she has been seeing them regularly at the pond and blames them for the drop in the bullfrog population.
At my mom’s cabin, there is a loon family. Last weekend we saw mom, dad and two adorable, black balls of fluff. We watched the babies crawl up on mom’s back. Now I can stress out about the babies. I will worry about them being snatched up by northerns, eagles, ospreys, and I’m sure a myriad of other predators.
That’s what I thought when I saw the ears. I guess I never knew what kind of tails they have.
I had to go out and run some errands last night, just before sunset, and the cars were stopped on Main street, waiting patiently for 5 of these guys to cross the road.
Not today, but Monday. Was out doing chores around the property, saw a cougar in my upper pasture, just laying and sunning. It didn’t hang around for long once it saw me. I imagine it’s probably stalking the 3 blacktail deer (2 does, 1 young buck in velvet) that have been habituating my pasture lately.
Wow! Does that happen often?
We did our marketing this morning, and because there was only one checker at that time, and standing is bad for my arthritic knees, I went to the car while my sister stood in the long line. This market has had for at least ten years a population of wild parrots (I thought). I called them the Parking Lot Parrots. They’re hard to see, and when they’re flying they’re usually silhouetted against the sky, so it’s difficult to see exactly what they look like.
Well, as I approached the car, I heard their screeching – so loud – and then I spotted one in the palm tree we were parked next to. It was well camouflaged in that area below the fronds where the dead fronds had dropped off. There was a frond on the ground next to the car which I was thinking made a nice niche for it in the tree trunk. As I stood looking at, a second one peaked around from behind. An abuela walked by with her grandson and noticed me staring and got really excited. Her grandson didn’t seem so interested. But he was pretty little (no more than 3).
I got a good enough look to try to id them when I got home. They were Red Masked Parakeets. So, not Parrots, but Parking Lot Parakeets. And loud.
So dumb. I didn’t even think to try getting a picture.
Ooo, exotic!
I remember when we traveled to Australia, a cockatoo came and perched on our balcony. I thought someone’s pet had escaped but nope, they just have cool birds all over the place.
Yeah, I’d known about this population for years, but when I was investigating when I got home, I found out that there were 9 species of parrots (and apparently some number of parakeets!) now endemic in Los Angeles. There are no native parrots in the US. Texas has a large population of Red Headed Parrots that migrated from Mexico (no Wall for them!), and due to habitat issues, the native Mexican population is decreasing. The US parrots may be used to help build the Mexican population back up.
They said these populations that have established themselves “in the wild” are better suited for re-introduction. They’ve developed “street smarts” that domestically raised birds haven’t. So interesting.
I present to you the Carolina parakeet ( Conuropsis carolinensis, extinct) and from the wikiarticle:
It was the only indigenous parrot within its range, as well as one of only three parrot species native to the United States (the others being the thick-billed parrot, now extirpated, and the green parakeet, still present in Texas; a fourth parrot species, the red-crowned amazon, is debated)
Ah, so parakeets are parrots? I thought they were different.
Parakeets are Psittaciformes, with almost 400 species across over 90 genera. Parrots in the superfamily Psittacoidea are called true parrots, and parakeets fall into this category. (Cite)
ETA: TIL the term extirpated for a local extinction.
Thanks for doing the research. And you learned something, too!
Notorious as the parrots of Telegraph Hill in SF.
I learned even more, and shared it in the Interesting Random Facts thread.
Someone just left the nest.
