Three Bird Stories
1. Love Birds
In January the pair of love birds we've had for two years, one yellow-green with a peach colored face, the other dark green and blue with a pink face, began laying eggs all over the cage. We didn't know which one was the female until she laid several eggs in the food dish and began sitting on them. It was the darker one.
After a couple of weeks she abandoned the eggs, so we removed them, and got a little plywood nesting box to attach to the outside of the cage. Both birds immediately went inside and we didn't see them again for several weeks. And, they were mercifully quiet.
Soon the male began coming out to stoke up on food and water, returning to feed mom. We peaked in from time to time, to make sure everything was all right, and there came a day when there were four naked baby love birds. It was exciting and magical for our family, as we waited for them to appear at the circular door.
Two were colored like dad, only a lighter yellow and paler cheeks. The other two were charcoal gray with no color whatsoever. We watched as they one by one appeared at the door and ventured outside. It seemed like no time before all four were clamboring around the cage and making one godawful racket.
At about the same time, momma love bird went back in the box and dad made it apparent that none of the youngsters was welcome there. Our suspicions were confirmed when we peaked inside the box to find four more eggs. Yes, our six already too many lovebirds were soon going to be increased to ten.
We still don't know what we're going to do about this - except to remove that dang nesting box at the first opportunity.
2. Starlings
When we got our house, one of its more important amenities was a lap pool in the back yard. My wife is an avid swimmer; it's what she does for exercise, and she swims every single day in our pool during the warm season.
In the 1890's, Eugene Schieffelin, decided to release into the United States all of the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. Starting with only a few pairs of European starlings released in New York's Central Park, the starling became Mr. Schieffelin's biggest success. When I lived in the Midwest in 1980, starlings were everywhere in huge flocks, but I had never seen them in California - until last year, when a flock of about 30 starlings moved into our back yard and began making nests in the pine trees next to the pool.
We thought it was cute at first - wildlife coming in to our yard to reproduce. The concept soon soured, though, as they began using the pool as a giant bird bath and latrine. They defecated and regurgitated on everything. They chased away all the other birds, and once their eggs hatched, they terrified our cats, dive-bombed any approaching humans, and made cacaphonous "keck, keck, keck" calls every time we went outside. Finally, after about six weeks of this, the fledglings learned to fly and they all left. Sigh of relief.
Then, about three weeks ago, the starlings arrived en masse, happily yelling "We're back!" at the top of their little lungs, and began setting up housekeeping. I vowed they would not repeat their performance of the preceeding year.
A week ago last Saturday I spent the morning scraping starling feces off the patio furniture and pool cover, and that afternoon I went into defensive action. I climbed high into the pines and pulled out approximately 15 cleverly hidden nests, apologized to the eight or ten beautiful blue speckled eggs in each one, and threw them to the ground.
The adults were flying around screaming at me, and I admit I felt terrible about it, but I did it. They stayed around for a couple of days after, but then lost interest and went ... away.
Songbirds have returned. Things are clean. Peace.
3. Redtail Hawk
Our house is situated on a slope. Looking downhill from our house is our neighbor, surrounded by trees. Beyond them and further downslope is a small creek, lined with pines and eucalyptus trees. From our uphill vantage we are at about eye-level with the tops of these trees.
Last Saturday afternoon - the first after the starling departure - I was standing on the deck outside the back door looking east, when I saw a redtail hawk fly into one of the pine trees down the hill and perch on a horizontal branch. I stepped inside to get my binoculars, and just as I came back out the hawk took off from the pine and soared a short distance away to a crotch in a tall eucalyptus, about 300 yards from where I stood. I put up the field glasses to have a look, and saw the hawk had landed on a nest - a huge nest. And in it was a large, almost grown baby hawk.
I set up my little Celestron C90 telescope and called out the family and some visiting guests, and we spent the rest of the day taking turns watching the hawks. The mother would leap away, and the baby would test its balance on the edge of the nest, slowly flapping its wings. The mother would return with a mouse or gopher and, holding it with her feet, tear away long strips of flesh which she held out for the baby to gulp down.
It's an incredible sight to see - like watching the nature channel, but real life, and only feet from my back door. We've continued to watch them, hoping we are fortunate enough to witness the baby's first flight.
I took the following pictures with my little 2 megapixel camera, first using the normal focal length, then the 3X optical zoom. Then I held the lens up to the ocular of the telescope and took the magnified pictures.
10:36:56 PM 
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