I was sitting on the ground beside a Mesquite bush. By the way, I don’t really recommend that – as I am told that rattlesnakes really like to live or hang out under them. But, there I was, sitting and working on something. Many small birds chattered and chirped in the bushes and grasses around me. I think I’m going to add a new term for the Little Gray Birds that swiftly scatter before they can be seen well enough to identify.
Suddenly, everyone fell silent and a sense of danger filled the air. I looked up and around me. One of the Harris Hawks that hunts here flew by me, right at eye level, seeming near enough to touch. I could only sit in wonder. Sitting down as I was, I was below the level of the long grasses around me, and so he probably never noticed me. I sure noticed him!
Shortly after, the Loggerhead Shrike landed not far away in the top of a small, slender sapling. He flew up and darted to and fro a few times, then apparently deciding the hunting was better up by the house, flew away. I know he went to the house, because the husband was sitting by the front window – and got to watch the Shrike hunt around the front of the house for a bit while I was gone.
When I finally got up and headed back to the house, a pair of Black Throated Sparrows lit in a Mesquite near me and allowed me to get quite close, seeming to watch me as much as I was watching them. I stood still for a few minutes before they finally got too nervous and flew away.
A large, mixed flock of Doves, mostly Mourning Doves and White Winged Doves, flew from bush to bush ahead of me as I walked back to the house.
I love this place!