Bird feeder traffic

When I think of Thanksgiving, it's mostly about getting together with family and eating, not necessarily in that order.  It seems an appropriate time to make sure that I feed the birds too.  I used to keep the feeders full year-round but some years ago, concerned with reports of birds spreading disease at feeders, I reduced my provisions of seeds to the colder months of the year when there's less food available to them.

The finches are usually the first to appear.

The Lesser Goldfinches (Spinus psaltria) showed up in greater numbers but the House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) were present too.  I haven't seen the Spice Finches (Lonchura punctulata) at all yet.  The latter are native to Asia but escaped pets have spread in the US, and notably California.

The White-crowned Sparrows showed up slightly later.  There was a good crowd of them at one point but I didn't capture it.  However, the sparrows and the finches always seem comfortable mingling at the feeder and I did capture one in the group shown below.  

The bird sitting in the Ceanothus just below the middle feeder is a White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys).  Unlike the finches, species noticeably differentiated by gender, these sparrows are described as "sexually monochromatic," which means they can't be readily differentiated based on their appearance, although there are apparently nominal size differences.

On the other hand, when the California Scrub Jays arrive, all the other birds back off.

California Scrub Jays (Aphelocoma californica) are described as "assertive" and they take over the feeders and send the smaller birds off as soon as they arrive.  Two of these jays jockeyed for control of the feeders even though they're "squirrel resistant," which means they also lock out the heavier birds to a significant degree.  Even so, the jays are adept at getting to the seeds to some extent.

This is a closeup of one of the jays.  This bird's underside was particularly fluffy.  It occurred to me that it might be a somewhat immature bird but then it's possible it was fluffed up due to either the wind or its conflict with the other jay.  Like the White-crowned Sparrows, adult Scrub Jays can only be differentiated by size, not appearance. 

The finches use the bare Ginkgo tree some 20 feet away as a waystation when the Scrub Jays are in takeover mode

Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving and may you get all you want to eat!

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Unexpected raindrops

We received a small amount of rain on Friday and an even smaller amount the next morning, totaling 0.07/inch in total.  I haven't tried to calculate how much rainwater my barrels collected but at least there's been enough to fill my watering cans several times so far.  The rain, virtually unheard of at this time of year, was such a surprise I took my camera out into the garden on Friday to take photos of the raindrops on various plants.

Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt'

Agave attenuata

Artemisia 'Seafoam' - The droplets were visible to my bare eyes even though they don't show up clearly in my photo; however, I liked the combination of the silver foliage and the reddish peppermint willow leaves (Agonis flexuosa) enough to share it

Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'

Cotyledon in a pot but I can't identify it more specifically

Echium candicans 'Star of Madeira'

Leptospermum 'Copper Glow'

Leucadendron 'Jubilee Crown'

Leucadendron 'Safari Sunset'

Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder'

Spiderwebs on Acacia and Crassula

I'd planned to get some additional photos but I got distracted.  One of the distractions involved this visitor, which I think was a female house finch:

She hit the kitchen window hard but was upright.  She had her eyes closed for a time as shown on the left.  She recovered as shown on the right and flew away within about 30 minutes.  I remained at a distance but kept watch.  No bird has ever hit that window before in my experience but my impression is that she was being chased. 

Our 2025 "water year" ended yesterday with a total of 7.03 inches of rain for the previous twelve months at our location, less than half our average total.  Predictions for the 2026 water year, which begins today, aren't especially rosy but I'm holding out hope.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

What's going on with that bird?

Glancing at the horizon several days ago I noticed a bird behaving oddly.  It was a long-distance sighting as the activity occurred across the canyon in a nearby neighborhood.  The bird was large and repetitively swooped over a lawn area with its wings fully extended as if preparing to grab prey.  But its movements were erratic and its wingspan appeared wider than the hawks that frequent our area.  I moved on to other things but, hours later, I noticed it again behaving similarly in the same area.  I pulled out both my cell phone and my Canon, using their zoom features to get a closer look.  Here's a very short video documenting what I saw:

The camera's still shots cleared up matters a bit.

That bird is plastic and attached to pole

Its erratic movements were dictated by the wind.  When there was no wind, there was no movement.

Another photo taken at a different time showed that there was more than one "species" of bird swooping over the area.

This one was blue rather than brown.  The structures in the distance are part of the Port of Los Angeles complex.

The "birds" have been flying for about a week.  The question now is why?  Do you have any theories?

The birds soared above this area underneath a tall flagpole, bordered by a sharp slope.  The "lawn" is also fake - I saw it being installed a year or 2 ago.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Spring: This week's new arrivals

Spring is a busy season - for both me and my plants.  I'm spending more time working in the garden and have less time to pull together blog posts.  And the garden seemingly produces new blooms every time I turn around. To address both concerns, I thought I'd use my Wednesday posts to provide quick looks at the plants producing their first blooms.  At present, I plan to continue these for the next several weeks, or at least as long as the new blooms keep on coming.  If you didn't see last Friday's post on spring's arrival, you can catch up here.

Here's what's new this week:

I've seen a few Dutch Iris blooming in other peoples' gardens.  This Iris hollandica 'Sapphire Beauty' has just opened its first flowers in my back garden.

Once again, I failed to divide Scilla peruviana when the clump finished blooming last spring.  However, it doesn't appear that means I'm going to be short of flowers this year.

I never recorded the Narcissus bulbs I planted in this back garden bed 2-3 years ago but I think they're Narcissus 'Beautiful Eyes'

I haven't had the best luck in growing Ranunculus in the past but I took advantage of a mail order sale this past fall and ordered 4 varieties.  This is Ranunculus 'Tecolote White'.  The flowers are a little wimpy but appreciated nonetheless.

Ranunculus 'Tecolote Rose' is following just behind the white variety.  The other 2 varieties have yet to show themselves.

Lobelia laxiflora is already bountiful enough to make an impact.  This is one of the plants most beloved by the local hummingbirds.

Hybrid Helleborus 'Phoebe' is peaking through a Calliandra shrub in the back garden

I've no record of planting this noID Ageratum with white flowers anywhere but this one has appeared consistently in my back garden border for the last 3 years.  Unlike the annual Ageratum houstonianum, it behaves like a woody perennial shrub and it grows significantly taller than the projections for that species.  It's approximately 4 feet tall at present.  I cut it back every year and it returns.  

As an addendum, here's one of the birds that's recently become active in my garden I captured a couple of shots while buzzing through my garden photographing flowers:

I think this is a Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos).  He's quite vocal at the moment.

He's a handsome devil too

There's an eighty percent chance of rain in my area this afternoon, possibly continuing into Thursday, as well as another chance of rain next Monday night.  I hope both storms materialize!

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

When the bird feeders are full

I've been leaving my bird feeders empty for much of the year; however, I feel compelled to fill them during the winter months.  Granted, what passes for winter in my climate poses far fewer challenges for the birds than conditions in colder climates but I do like watching them from the window of my home office at this time of year.

Unfortunately, my windows are less than pristine and foggy conditions on some days didn't help the clarity of the following photos yet they still tell a story.

The house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) and lesser goldfinches (Spinus psaltria) are always the first to show up when seeds magically appear

Fuzzy closeup of the lesser goldfinches

The white crown sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) showed up soon after the finches

The spice finches (Lonchura punctulata), birds native to tropical Asia, were late arrivals.  These birds escaped into the wild decades ago.

The smaller birds are scared off on a regular basis by the neighborhood bully.

The California scrub jay (Aphelocoma californica) scatters the smaller birds as soon as it arrives

Scrub jays can't get directly to the seed in my "squirrel-resistant" feeders but, like squirrels, they manage to get enough seed to keep them coming back

A bigger threat loomed.  I noted the hawk's arrival but all the smaller birds appeared oblivious.

Without a closer look, I can't be certain of his/her identity but I'm guessing it was a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).  They often land in the neighbor's pine trees behind our garden.

The birds also dismissed the threat that lay behind the glass window of my office.

Meeko has thoroughly enjoyed the presence of the birds, chittering at them.  She looks a little fat here but, at 11 months old, she's simply filled out some.

What I haven't seen are any squirrels.  They usually appear at the feeders before the birds do!  Last week, Loree of danger garden asked how the pumpkins in my front garden avoided destruction by squirrels for over two months.  While I've had squirrels tunnel through pumpkins overnight on many occasions, I assumed that the thick skins of the pumpkins I'd bought this year had made a difference.  

Photo taken in late October 2015

Then, while walking the neighborhood earlier this week, I noticed several ordinary pumpkins untouched  in the gardens of two other homes.  I also realized that it'd been a month or more since I've seen squirrels nearby.  A neighbor across the street told me she's seen packs of coyotes wandering through the area nearly every night on her trail and security cameras.  Another neighbor said she passed one in the mid-afternoon.  Maybe the squirrels have been pushed out by predators?  Even if true, I'm sure their absence is temporary.

Our regional Santa Ana winds are blowing again.  They touched off another serious wildfire in Pacific Palisades, approximately thirty-five miles to the north of us, yesterday morning.  Another major fire developed in Altadena, forty-five miles away, in the afternoon.  The smoke blew our way last night, permeating the house.  Wind whipping foliage about caused our motion-detection lights to go on and off, on and off constantly.  It was not a restful night but at least we don't have a fire in our immediate area.  My heart goes out to those who do. 

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Late Arrivals

Given the name of my blog, it seems entirely appropriate for me to follow up Friday's Bloom Day post with another one featuring stragglers that appeared following last week's deadline and those I simply missed in the course of my earlier survey.

The late arrivals are too pretty not to share, and as summer delivers warmer temperatures, I can't guarantee that they'll be around in mid-July.

By process of elimination, I've concluded that this is Epiphyllum 'King Midas', which I found in my lath house shortly after I'd published my Bloom Day post.  It should be more peach than pink but I suspect it'd already faded by the time I photographed it.

More daylilies have bloomed.  Hemerocallis 'Cordon Rouge' is on the left and H. 'Sammy Russell' is on the right.  The latter came with the garden.

The true lilies have been taking their time about blooming.  I've been watching Lilium 'Orange Planet' from my office window for weeks.  It finally opened its first blooms yesterday morning.

I didn't even notice the Lilium 'Montego Bay' below and behind 'Orange Planet' was blooming until I leaned in to get a closeup of 'Orange Planet'

This is Rosa 'Golden Celebration'.  It's heavy flowers tend to take a nose dive, hiding themselves in its foliage.

There were other flowers I just overlooked.

The small flowers of Oscularia deltoides seem to open all at once when I'm not looking, almost completely covering the plant's foliage.  This plant also managed to swamp the Agave 'Mateo' in a large pot alongside it before trailing down into the street side succulent bed below.

I noticed the silver foliage of this Helichrysum retortum before I noticed its papery flowers

Despite the vivid maroon color of the flowers of Pelargonium sidoides, they're easy to miss due to their small size

Low-growing Pennisetum orientale (aka Chinese fountain grass) is dormant during the winter months and always manages to surprise me when it reappears

I planted this intergeneric hybrid of Stachys and Lamium, called Stachys 'Lilac Falls', in 2016 and subsequently believed it'd died off but 2 good years of rain brought it back.  It only grows a few inches tall but it can spread 2-3 feet wide.

I've spent much of the past week in garden clean-up mode, pulling endless weeds, cutting back dead bulb foliage, deadheading flowers, pruning - you get the drift.  Some plants are committed to world domination so I've also spent a lot of time thinning those out.  None of that was worth photographing but I thought I'd show you an updated view of the area on the south-side of the house I addressed when we removed an overgrown 'Blue Flame' Agave.

This is the view from the dirt path behind the bed.  The Aeonium cuttings are filling out and coloring up nicely and the dark Aeonium arboreum 'Zwartkop' in the background is looking its very best.  I cleared a LOT of weeds around the Dasylirion longissima to the left of 'Zwartkop'.  I think that tiny Agave ovatifolia in the middle of the bed may have grown a smidgen larger..  There were some California poppies in the bare area but most of those have already died back.  I can still walk into the bed but I'm not sure how long that will last.

Salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gilman' is in full bloom, filling much of the previously open space

The Acanthus mollis I've tried to remove several times is blooming in the middle of a Vitex trifolia.  Note the 2-headed Acanthus flower stalk - that's the first time I've seen that.

Metrosideros collina 'Springfire' is done blooming for the season but it's gaining girth rapidly, which may become an issue

As temperatures continue to climb, further garden cleanup activities are likely to be confined to the early morning hours.  The insect population appears to have already upped its game as I'm now covered in bites from something or another.  But the birds and the lizards are keeping me company while I work.

The western fence lizards have come out in droves

I found ravens having a conference in my cutting garden yesterday morning.  Most immediately flew away but these 2 continued their conversation from a distance atop a peppermint willow.

Best wishes for a happy hump day!

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party