RECENT SIGHTINGS

Today is overcast again, and in the mid teens/mid 60s, but some serious heat is coming next week. Therefore I’m taking this opportunity to get ready for shorts, and am sitting here letting a layer of self-tanning lotion soak into my legs. When one lives in a town such as this, with such a large population of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern people, with their beautiful olive-toned skins, one must do something to look like on doesn’t live under a rock. So, I have time to sit and think about all the recent sightings in my yard. Unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures of most of them, so I’ll have to substitute a few from google images, and use some ones you've already seen.

· A raccoon sighting (spotted by Sydney) and the first of more I hope. He was caught in the act of burglaring along the top of breakwall rocks, no doubt looking for bugs or whatever else edible that might be stirring at dusk. I say caught in the act not only because of the masked face, but also because of the body posture: hunched, but still poised to amble off. And that’s exactly what he did a moment later. Come back and dance on my roof again sometime, I said.

· An aerial battle between a male Northern oriole and a male Red-winged blackbird. What a spinning kaleidoscope of colors as they tumbled in and out of the sun! I would have added a Bluejay, but - would that have been de trop?

· The cowbird with the weird bump on her head has reappeared. The bump looked even bigger than the last time, it's a real ratty pouf under her feathers. I’ve decided to name her Amy after Amy Winehouse, that British R&B singer who looks kind of like a feral Ronnette.

· A muskrat was nibbling something at the edge of the road. There are no sidewalks on my road, so he was taking an awful chance. I had my camera with me, but before I could turn around, snap his picture and urge him to a safer place, a big tree-trimming truck with a cherry-picker on top came roaring by. Fortunately the little ’rat scurried back among the irises growing in the ditch.

· The baby mallards have not been back after the two appearances earlier this week. Actually, I’m glad, because I hated to think of them crossing the road, even with SLOW signs. Both the drake and the hen have stopped by for some seed, but not together. I don’t know what the division of daycare is between mallards pairs, but I imagine her saying to him, “Look, you try laying eleven eggs, sitting on them for weeks, and then having them follow you a round going Cheep cheep cheep non-stop, everywhere. I'm about to pull my feathers out! I have to get a few minutes to myself! You take them for a while!!”

Gallery: "My" ducklings, a similar raccoon, the real Ronettes, Amy the bird, Amy the singer