Yesterday, I took part in the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. My portion was the southwestern side of Chollas Lake, usually locked to the general public. It includes the model air plane flying area.
Not many of the birds were co-operative about having their picture taken, especially the horned larks:
Saw many savanna sparrows, too.
And, several kestrels:
We could see the snow on Mount Laguna from where we were.
There were also meadowlarks, cedar waxwings, lots of yellow-rumped warblers, northern harrier, gnatcatchers, tons upon tons of Anna's hummingbirds, a merlin, red-tailed hawks, California towhees, and many other species. Very disappointed in the severe lack of killdeer (none!).
At the lake, I saw this cute little female muscovy:
And, Arrowhead!
Update on Jill:
Jill has re-joined the main flock, but is being harassed by all the geese. Louie is totally in love with her, but attacked her once, probably in an attempt to mate. Jill resisted and began fighting back. One of the Canada geese got upset and attacked Louie. Later, he made sure that Louie couldn't get near Jill. Louie shadowed her around, cooing and flexing his neck at her, but she kept her distance. It might be too soon for her and the other geese in the flock are making sure that she's kept at a low rank.
Someone else also thought that Jack might have been stolen from the lake, too. They said they saw footprints around where he and Jill hung out. But, like I said before, there is a lady who looks after them over there and I haven't talked to her about it, yet.
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