Fastest member of the Animal Kingdom

I spotted a bird of prey on the telephone pole near my property line.  By using reference books I identified it as the Peregrine Falcon.  I'd never seen this bird before and I'd never heard of the name.


 I found some really shocking facts when I completed my research on this Falcon:




1) The Smithsonian Institue declared it the "fastest member of the Animal Kingdom".  It was clocked in NYC swooping down off building on some prey at more than 202 MPH !   The bird I just looked at out my window is the fastest?  Holy smokes.  Who would think they'd see that from their living room window?

2)  They feast almost exclusively on medium sized birds.  They grab the birds by the wings mid-air then land on the ground and rip their prey to shreds.  They will eat also an occassional insect when hungry enough. 

3)  They mate for life.  The female is 30% bigger than the male.  They live mainly in cliff edges but are increasingly found in the city making a home on tall buildings.  These birds live on the west coast from Alaska to Mexico.  In California they spend spring and summer in the Sierras and move to the desert and foothills during fall and winter. 

4) The Peregrine Falcon was an Endangered Species until 1999.  The ban of DDT in the 70's has helped them recover. Supposedly they are very popular in the sport of Falconry, particularly because of their speed.  In 2004, Professional Falconists were briefly allowed to take a limited numbers of Falcons from the wild for the first time because the population has recovered so well.

All this, just because I casually glanced outside my window. 
The next thing I knew, the bird was gone.

Sara Orangetip

The Sara Orangetip butterfly is also known as the Pacific Orangetip.  It ranges along the Pacific coast of North America from Alaska to Mexico.  They are abundant up and down the West Coast, making their home in fields and deserts. They are one of the first butterflies to appear each spring and their bright colors add a touch of sparkle to their newly emerging green environment.  Butterflies are generally categorized as one of two types, patroller or percher, depending on mating strategies.  Sara Orangetip's fall in the patroller category of butterflies. Males patrol, or fly up and down a particular territory, in search of female butterflies. 

Millipedes

We have a lot of these.  They are usually about 4 inches long.  They love to get into the garage for some reason.   They are a slow moving insect known for eating decaying plant material and on rare occasion a small insect.  Their defense mechanism is to roll in a ball, hiding their underbelly and legs and/or to emit a caustic irritant to ants and other prey.  Each "section" is called a "segment" and has two legs.  Millipedes are known to have from 11 to over 100 segments depending on the age or type of Millipede species.  The genitals are always on the third segment behind the head.  Unfortunately we have stepped on a few and found that they have a dark red/black colored blood that stains whatever it lands on. 

American Crow

Crows are considered to be among the world's most intelligent animals. Recent research has found some crow species are capable not only of tool use but of tool construction as well.   These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass.  Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a street and waiting for a car to crush them open.  Crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing!  

The American Crow has been affected by the west-nile disease, upon catching it they will die within 3 weeks. Though humans cannot generally tell individual crows apart, crows have been shown to have the ability to visually recognize individual humans, and to transmit information about "bad" humans by squawking.

American Crows are monogamous cooperative breeding birds. Mated pairs form large families of up to 15 individuals from several breeding seasons that remain together for many years. Offspring from a previous nesting season will usually remain with the family to assist in rearing new nestlings.   Crows engage in mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish their pecking order. American Crows do not reach breeding age for at least two years.  Most do not leave the nest to breed for four to five years.

The nesting season starts early, with some birds incubating eggs by early April. American Crows build bulky stick nests, nearly always in trees but sometimes also in large bushes and, very rarely, on the ground. Three to six eggs are laid and incubated for 18 days.

While I'm not a huge fan of the crow due to the noise they make and the harrassment they give the Red Tail Hawks (their natural enemy) I do respect their intelligence. 

spider with a person face

Take a close look on the face of this spider.  It looks like a chubby faced baby! 
He caught a bee and had it wrapped up like a mummy in seconds.   

Dear Neighbor,

Are you the person who has beautified the neighborhood sign?  You've added the iron (which is a striking addition), cleared the weeds, and have planted a good size peppertree behind each stone post.   Our sign had been neglected for years, but now it's something befitting to our area.  Beautiful work. 

I saw you(?) watering the trees with 5 lb buckets of water and I wish I had stopped to say thank you.  Next time I will.  As a proud resident of Gavilan Hills I extend a sincere thank you.  My family and I greatly appreciate it.

Now, can you just tell us who you are?

From,
Mrs Wiley E Coyote

what's been in the garage

We keep glue paper down in the corners of the garage to catch whatever manages to get inside.  As you can see, we caught a small king snake this weekend. 

Coyote Den (east den)

o Here's a picture of a second coyote den.  The coyotes ran off as we approached the den.  The entrance is hidden in this picture and it's a bit tough to see here but an airvent/window is viewable to the left of the tree centered in this pic. 

lizard convention

I took this pic through the window from the inside of my house.  Three's a party.   

scorpion

I found him outside the garage.  Better outside than inside I suppose.