Hawks, hummingbirds, and doves

As you all know, we have a family of Coopers' hawks in our neighborhood.   I believe there are 2 juveniles and the mother.  She was much bigger than them, but they now all appear to be the same size.

How do I know this?   I know this because the last several days at least one of them has claimed our front yard as its territory!   It comes to visit our water bowls 2 or 3 times a day.   I often see it out front, just clutching the sides of one of the bowls and it will be there for 30-45 minutes, just gazing (glaring) around the yard.

Additionally, I found the...er...um...."remains" of a dove.   It apparently caught a dove and was EATING IT right in our front yard.   Ugh.   I went out and observed the carcass.   The next morning, about 5:30, I went out to feed the birds, and it was still there.   By 6 a.m., it was... GONE!  I did see the hawk swoop through the yard, so it must have come back to retrieve its meal from the previous afternoon.   AND, that was confirmed when I found the carcass in our BACK YARD under the large (now dead...) pine tree!   Yup.   There it was, on the ground under one of the branches.   Interesting...

I made a bird themed journal for the ranch owner because she breeds and raises and sells exotic birds and she has a roadrunner family on her property and she is constantly telling me funny stories about them.   They really are a hoot!  And, now she has a flock of turkey vultures that comes to visit.   (She throws out dead mice from the aviary several times a day and between the ravens, roadrunners, and vultures, they get rapidly devoured.)  She called me yesterday afternoon to let me know that everything is okay on the ranch.  (They were just over the hill from the Cranston fire).   They now have electricity and the horses ALL have water.   She did move Gigondas to another corral because that one has a 55 gallon drum of water, whereas her other one only had a small waterer.   She ended up buying 2 generators...one for the house and another one for her water pump, to keep it going.  She said in the 18 years she's been there, this fire came the closest to her ranch.   With 14 horses there, she wouldn't be able to evacuate more than 3, and they certainly wouldn't be mine...She has a stallion and several of her mares are worth some money.   Fortunately, there aren't too many trees around the horse corrals.

So, here we are at the END of July and I just checked the 10 day forecast and we have some nights down into the 70's here NEXT WEEK!   I'm so excited!   I CANNOT wait to plant my fall seeds, but I won't do that until the temps drop.

And, I sold 3 journals last week!  (photos below)...

Here are a couple of photos:

 The view of our valley from the Toro Peak webcam, looking north.   Yes, that is REAL RAIN!

 Cooper's hawk from a couple of years ago.   I haven't been able to get a clear shot this summer.

 This journal SOLD!

And this one SOLD!   YAY!   Plus, another smaller one...

~~Cheryl Ann~