Holler Lesser Goldfinch,
females,
posing up a storm!
Coiffed,
and ready for their close-ups,
Mr. DeMille.
Mr. Goldfinch, refusing to be outdone, wants a portrait too.
Cheers to you from The Holler posers~
All things holler related such as animal interactions: with cattle updates, raptor stories, all interactions with birds especially roadrunners and quail, rattlesnake updates and coyote pack issues. Some time there might be human interactions as well, but there aren’t many humans near the holler!
Tiny Scaly Breasted Munias are native to India and Southeast Asia (click/tap to enlarge).
I told you birds,
don’t pay attention,
to where they are ‘supposed’ to be!
They looked as surprised to see me as I was to see them, but we are getting used to each other.
There is a whole flock of them.
It turns out these birds were sold in US pet stores as Nutmeg Mannikins.
Some escaped and have been breeding in Southern California.
I had a dickens of a time identifying them because they are not native.
Cheers to you from the new Holler locals who are fitting in quite nicely with the neighbors~
This Bullocks Oriole is not sticking his tongue out at you, or me (click to enlarge).
He is eating grape jelly. Orioles are grape jelly fiends. At The Holler, strawberry, or other fruit jellies won’t do. Only ants and wasps will eat it.
We have two types of orioles at The Holler. Hooded Orioles and Bullocks Orioles.
These are all Bullocks Oriole males.
This is a Hooded Oriole male. He is more elongated, has a larger beak, and is a brighter yellow color.
A mated male and female Bullocks Oriole pair. Bullocks Orioles males have the dramatic black eyeliner at the outside corners of their eyes and are more orange in color.
All orioles are extremely argumentative! This male Bullocks Oriole holds his own in a fierce debate against a more formidable Mocking Bird.
Cheers to you from all the quarrelsome Holler Orioles~
Look at those ears! This watcher caught me unaware through the window at dawn. I shot him through double paned glass in the rain. Holler coyotes are quite bold now, coming through our fences before dawn and hanging out. This is a sub-adult, so I suspect he dug under the fences.
You can see he is bold, made and held eye contact, even while I grabbed my camera case, pulled out my camera, removed the lens cap, and got a few shots.
Since he didn’t back off, I opened the door, and walked after him. He sashayed off after I yelled.
This guy in Death Valley also stood his ground, but he was not challenging, more interested.
He sashayed off too.
These are more Holler sub-adult coyote siblings. The one who stared at me also has a sibling. All four are about the same age, sub-adult.
This is an adult. Coyotes and Grey Wolves may be the only ‘pure’ wild canine species still surviving in North America. Most other wolf species have at least some coyote DNA.
Red Wolves, for example, share 75% of their DNA with coyotes. For more on this read: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/distinctions-blur-between-wolf-species#:~:text=Red%20wolves%20contain%20about%2075,to%2050%20percent%20coyote%20ancestry.
There are also a lot of Ceonothus Silk Moths at The Holler right now. Ceonothus is lilac. We live in Lilac California, named after the wild lilacs that grow profusely here. Ceonothus Moths lay their eggs on wild lilac. They have a wing span of up to five inches, have no mouth, live only a matter of days and only live to reproduce.
They are calm and beautiful creatures who are not afraid of humans.
Cheers to you from The Holler Creatures~