Totally Birdy

March is motoring along. We've enjoyed sunny skies, more blooms, and birdsong even more over the past week. One thing that I noticed when I moved to this heavily populated piece of California peninsula was the lack of birdsong, which was in stark contrast to every other place I've lived in this country, where I would wake to the 'chip chip cheerio!' of robins or the cawing of crows. I say this country, because in Italy there was not much birdsong to be heard, either, from our flat and over the din of the neighbors yelling, the cacophony of televisions (because generally, tiny Italian apartments have at least 3 televisions), the buzz of motorbikes, the guzzles of buses, and every other impassioned urban sound. My remembrance of birdsong in Italy fizzles down to one: an intrepid night bird, who would make solitary, monosyllabic calls from an undisclosed location on our block. I heard this bird on instances when I would return home from a night out. I'm not sure whether the bird was truly nocturnal or just opportunistic. Studies have shown that birds in urban areas have indeed adjusted their calls in an effort to function and in essence, survive, despite the constant daytime din (and sometimes nighttime, as well). For instance, some birds, perhaps like the feathered Italian, move their mating calls into the quieter hours when they may actually have a chance of being heard and thus, finding a mate. Other birds who don't wish to relinquish their diurnal habits have begun to sing at a higher pitch, which is more easily heard over the lower-pitched constant hum of cities. I digress...
The birds around our rental home have started singing and chirping with the dawn and into the day, which is a relief and comfort to me. Today I witnessed two Bewick's Wrens collecting nesting material. It seems they may be starting a nest directly above our front porch, tucked into a blue tunnel of Tibetan prayer flag that has formed from the flag blowing and sticking into the roof's gutter. If they continue to build there, we'll have to secure the flag for them!

Speaking of birds, this past Monday was a birding extravaganza with Shelley, a friend who came down from San Francisco for the afternoon. She suggested bird watching, which both of us enjoy but don't do nearly enough. It was an excellent activity choice - lots of birds on the marshes even in mid-afternoon sun (we were lucky that it was low tide - aka, feeding time) and perfect slow pace for a fat lady. I'll spare you the list of birds that we spied, and summarize it as: lots of duck species, a few types of grebes, and several waders such as avocets and stilts. After birding we went to Google to join our husbands for dinner. YUM.

We're looking forward to this weekend and Easter! Julian happens to love Easter, due to the chocolate, I believe... We'll cook a nice meal on Sunday to enjoy with the neighbors and likely have some egg painting and egg hunting along the way.

My family always hunted for our Easter baskets as opposed to an egg hunt. Usually the searching would go something like this: Get really excited, search for 5 minutes, become discouraged, whine for clues, search more, try to get dog to sniff it out for you, whine for more clues, search search search, WANT CHOCOLATE, nothing, sibling found your basket but won't tell you where it is, sibling found his basket and is now eating chocolate while you still search, whine for more clues and finally enlist Mom to walk around playing 'hot and cold' until you find basket - relief! My mom used to get, um, 'creative' with the basket hiding spots. Some examples: in the dryer under a pile of towels; in the kitchen trash can under the trash bag; and perhaps the most extreme - both baskets in a trash bag tied to a rope, hanging on the outside of the house from a second floor window. Yes, we took the Easter basket hunt seriously at our house. It was nothing short of a sport. As much as I may have whined about difficult hiding spots, there would have been more whining had we found the baskets too easily.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend! Happy Easter!