Welcome Pauline Barclay, a new follower of Desert Canyon Living. Pauline is a writer and animal lover, who blogs here.
Also, thank you all so much for your birthday wishes. I had a great day and I appreciate all your good wishes so much.
The other day, I looked out our living room window and saw this in our dead tree. And I didn't even know road runners could fly. Well, that is, I had never seen one fly before.
The dead tree will be cut down in due time. Right now a pair of Western Kingbirds have a nest with young ones in the tree. You can see it right between the two road runners in the pictures above and below.
For a while, I have enjoyed watching the kingbirds
feeding and taking care of their young. Because of this, I am by now a bit emotionally attached to this nest and the baby birds. So I only took two pictures from the living room window, before I ran out to scare away the road runners. While they are my favorite canyon birds, and I'm thrilled they came back this year, I have to draw the line somewhere. Like stick with snakes and bugs for your dinner. As I approached, the male flew down from his branch, landed a bit away, and took off at a run. But the female just moved higher up in the tree and wouldn't leave until I shook the branches. All the while, several kingbirds and some other smaller birds were all over the tree, but not able to do anything much to protect the nest. An interesting wildlife encounter for me and a reminder that there is no end to what I can learn about the critters of the canyon.
