The Backyard Wildlife Show

Backyard critters, I am feeding them, watching them, luring them out of hiding, in my little downtown yard in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Who would have thought that feeding the birds would lead to such?  I will blame it on our rental agreement which does not allow me to have a kitty.  When I started feeding the birds I got a kitty, actually two, by default.  They come by to watch, and occasionally to spar with each other when their schedules of territorial patrol intersect - those kitties!  They come by to sit on my patio in the comfy chair or to crouch behind the giant rosemary bush to watch the backyard wildlife show.

My bird feeding attracted the squirrels, of course.  One family we call the Hoovers.  They clean up everything but leftover cornbread - CA snobby squirrels.  We have grey squirrels and black squirrels.  The black squirrels live near the top of the giant redwood tree that is in the yard right behind our car garage. The grey squirrels live in the eucalyptus tree high up over the recycling bins. And regardless of what you think of squirrels, and I know what you think, they are incredible acrobats and they perform and posture and fly through the branches.  They loosen the avocados so that they drop to the ground and I can collect them. If I am fast enough I can collect them before the squirrels gnaw into them; they gnaw into them in the same way a cat gnaws into a mole, with just one bite.

My bird feeding lured the crow couple who live in one of the huge live oaks that uniquely canopy our little house. Lord and Lady Crowley, we call them.  Their babies all ended up dead in the driveway at various stages of infancy last year so I justify feeding them to preserve their bloodline; crow welfare, some would say.  I select special raw peanuts in the shell for them at the Farmer's Market every Sunday.  They watch me from outside my windows as I move from room to room inside the house, going about my daily routine, and they alert me to other animal intruders in the yard.  Like the kitties, like the possum.

First time I saw Br'er Possum was when I was dragging my suitcase around to the backdoor after being dropped off by the SFO airport shuttle at the end of my last trip back to the Southland in February.  It was about noon and there he was - as bold and as fat as a possum can be - right on the walk beside the giant rosemary bush.  He waddled off into my flower bed when he caught sight of me. Br'er Possum has become a regular midday visitor, he just nods in my direction now, boldly strolling up to the back screened door.  The Crowleys loudly alert me to his presence with a persistent cawing like none other.

And remember the mysterious case of the missing garden croc?  I leave my crocs right beside my back door, ready to step into as I go out to work in my little garden. One morning one croc was missing.  I found it while raking leaves a few days later.  It was half buried under the purple blooms of morning glory vines, just beside the old olive tree that grows at the back of our yard.  The olive tree overhangs the car garage and is all covered with the morning glory vines. When the olives ripen and drop, the crows eat them and fight over them with their long lost crow cousins who come over uninvited. One of my own cousins, I think he is an Episcopalian now, suggested that I make the crows martinis. (Good Southern Baptist girl that I am, I have never had a martini. My husband says it is time to remedy that and, he says, I am probably the only good southern baptist girl left who has not had a martini.)  After fishing my missing croc from the tangle of vines with the rake a rather large raccoon lumbered out, limb by furry limb, from inside the hollow in the trunk of the olive tree. She raised herself up once, then twice, on her hind legs. She waved her forelegs, shifting from foot to foot on her back legs- menacing at me, then she headed off towards the busy sidewalk in the front of our house here, downtown.

Our yard was nothing but hard-packed dirt when we first moved in.  I have coaxed it back to life.  With the coming back of the wild grasses and dandelions came the little sparrows. I fed them until others of the feathered kind began to arrive - little hooded juncos, red breasted robins in the Spring, tiny yellow finches fluttering the grasses, hummingbirds zipping in and out of my lavender, doves in pairs cooing in the evenings, and the bird I most wanted - the CA scrub jay.  This bird is as large as a GA crow and as bright as a tropical sky with highlights and lowlights, shades and tints of azure. The call of the scrub jay is distinct and a little eerie in timbre.  Its behavior is more aggressive than the crow!  The scrubs come to visit every morning and afternoon.  I love to see them swoop in, dropping from the sky, scooping up as many peanuts as they can into their beaks at one time, two or three - dropping one, trying again - greedy greedy greedy, then swooping back out again.