Observations

This past week, I spent time watching:

-a mockingbird. If you don't know, male mockers sing in the spring (day and night). The females choose to mate with the mocker with the most impressive song. So the birds learn to imitate everything around them.

He was going through his entire repetoire... I recognized gold finch, hummingbird, and squirrel among his songs. He was quite good... would sing a tone six times then move on to the next.. and every once in a while would rise up and fly a little, then settle back down on his chimney. At one point another male settled in nearby... hoping to learn some of his sounds. And suddenly the first mocker almost stopped... making only the most feeble of singing noises.

-a young mule deer grazing behind the house. He looked up as I walked outside, waggled an ear, then put his head back down to graze.

-a snake crawling across the street. A woman walking by stopped short to watch it. Or to stay out of it's way. I'm not sure if it was a gopher snake or a rattler.