This afternoon, I heard a quail calling with the distinctive "chi-ca-go" call that they used to call in their flock or attract a mate. I peeked through the front door and saw him perched on the rail of the fence.

( Photos Before he Noticed Me )

This morning, I heard a distinctive bird call from outside of a quail announcing his presence. I tried to ease the front door open without disturbing him, but he spotted it and hopped off the fence from where he had been calling.

( Spot the Quail )

We held off moving the small wood box off the porch on account of how cold it was at the start of the month, but moved it yesterday. As this weekend is the "ceremonial" start of summer (which runs more or less from Memorial Day to Labor Day), we could now use the whole front porch for relaxing and bird watching.

( Chairs and Birds )

Lisa made a big dent in clearing the weeds, brush, and other debris from the fence that separates our two properties yesterday.

( Clearing the Way )

I think the birds forgot that we are here, just because I ran out of birdseed for a few weeks. I've laid out more birdseed in various places, and have seen almost no birds for the past several days. I hope some of them will come by and rediscover that there's a place for them here.

Today I bought a bag of birdseed from Big R and refilled the bird feeder. It may take a while for the birds to find it again, though.

It has cooled enough from the peak a few days ago that when the porch is in shade, it's decently comfortable. (We somehow have escaped much of the deadly heat blanketing most of the rest of the world, it appears.) So when possible, even though we have plenty of things to do for the Winnipeg trip, we try to spend some time outside on the porch, ( Read more... )

We have some sagebrush on the far side of the East Lot that we call the "bird bushes" because the smaller birds tend to perch there; however, the larger birds usually only use them as places to shelter. Indeed, I've seen some of them run under the bushes to get away from hawks, which are too large to go into the bushes. However, sometimes the quail ( Read more... )

Yesterday morning while I was washing dishes, I spotted a quail perched on the fence near the bird feeder. I wondered if he thought he was small enough to get at the bird feeder, which he was not. Eventually, I figured out why he was there.

( Standing Watch )

This morning, while turning the kettle on for my morning coffee, I peered outside and realized that it had snowed overnight.

( Two Days Apart )