Beginning June

Lots of baby birds around today. This morning I saw three tiny finches, about the size of hummingbirds and flying like butterflies. In the afternoon I was in the grove. I heard the Kites that have been nesting there whistling frantically; they kept it up for about 15 minutes then an answering voice came from a tree about 100 yards from the nest...a young Kite, probably newly out of the nest. After it answered there were a few more calls from the parents then silence.

The buckeyes are in full bloom, and the grasses are in between green and brown. Today a storm front came in and tonight, one night before full moon, there is a strong wind blowing across the mountains. I walked down to the grove in the moonlight. I was expecting to see the owl that lives in the neighborhood but did not...perhaps it is too windy. The wind was actually producing a howling sound. 

The thistle below is Teazel, a medicinal plant used for treatment of Lyme Disease. Common along roadsides and ditches. 

The Aralia (spikenard) is flowering...I think it just started; if was flowering last week I didn't notice.

Michele and Kirsten and I walked down to Rocky Hill Road where I collected some very dry scat, presumably coyote, that was almost entirely hair and bones. A tiny whole jawbone is visible on one side of the scat. While walking with Jeanna the next day we found a place where the owl has been roosting, and a couple of large pellets were on the ground below.