BEEP, BEEP

Early mornings out in the garden are full of bird sounds. Occasionally the mating call of the road runner, Geococcyx californianus, is heard and yesterday he came close by as I was out with my camera. He is a frequent visitor in our neighborhood and one time when I was bending down planting something in the garden he came just a few feet away from me. I kept perfectly still as he came closer and closer. He was too busy looking for insects and spiders to see me. He is welcome to the grasshoppers, crickets and snails but I don't like it when he comes foraging for my lizards and anoles. Somewhere around he makes a nest in a shrubby bush but I have never yet seen one.

His call wasn't the only call I heard.

At first I thought it was turkeys, as they have been around the last few days, but the sound came from high up in the sky. It was the sandhill cranes, Grus canadensis, on their way back from the South Texas brush country to their breeding grounds in the Canadian tundra, Alaska and the northern marshes and grasslands. They fly in a ragged group high up in the sky but their trumpeting cry causes you to look up and is wonderful to hear. It is a signal that spring is on the way.

Inspired by owl boxes we saw in several gardens on the Master Gardeners' Tour last fall and by a recent posting by Pam, at Digging, I asked David if he would make a screech owl box. He found plans for building a box on uTube and today he mounted it high in the Spanish oak tree. It is unlikely that an owl will use the box this year because the human scent on the wood will take time to wear off. He plans to make a smaller box with a round hole with plans taken from the Audubon website. I know there are screech owls around here as I frequently hear them in the night and one time we had one fly in through the skylight on the greenhouse. We hope, next year, they will nest in one of our boxes.