It certainly felt like spring as I strolled around some of the corporate parks near the Bay Trail. I had originally planned on walking along the Trail, but got sidetracked by a lot of bird calls coming from a nearby grove. I instead walked along a nice paved path that weaved between two large buildings and around a small park. The sun was shining and the birds were singing their hearts out!

There were loads of California Towhees along the path making quite a ruckus (it’s amazing how loud one little bird can be). I love to sit and watch them scritch the ground with their cute little hop-hop forage dance. Of course then I get distracted and not actually take a picture of them until they are up in a tree. :-)

Much quieter but equally as fun to watch forage are Black Phoebes. They are very common around here, and yet I still pause to watch them sally from their perch to snatch insects right out of the air.

Just then a big shadow crosses my path and I look up to see a Red-tailed Hawk fly into a nearby tree. She didn’t turn around to face me, but rather just let her beautiful red tail gleam in the sunlight.

And then she found something more interesting to do elsewhere.

Another neat sighting was this Nuttall’s Woodpecker. Did you know that the male Nuttall’s does most of the incubation of their clutches, including all of the nocturnal incubation and brooding duties? What a man! :-)

Speaking of nests and clutches and the like, I had a grand time watching Bushtits foraging for nesting supplies! I bet that green rope looked like great material for him… but a bit rough for my taste! What thread count do you think it is? I can’t sleep on anything less than 600. :-)

He eventually found some softer material that was suitable.

He then proceeded to pop into this nest and dance around a bit. It’s hard to convey motion in these pictures, but I assure you that pendant nest was bouncing around!

Bushtits will very frequently abandon nests (and eggs for that matter) if they are disturbed, so I didn’t want to push my luck and walked on. I read also that they will even change mates if they do desert their nest, they will also change mates before building a new nest. The nest was actually hanging over the path and was almost within reaching distance, so I don’t have high hopes for this one. But here’s hoping!