The hummingbirds are scarce so far this April. But Herself reported seeing a coyote just down the street as she drove to work this morning.
Ain’t that just the way it is? God’s Dog is on the job while Her colorful little buzzbombs are off screwing the pooch somewhere.
Hope the ICEholes haven’t scooped ’em all up. That would be the cutest detention center ever.
Mad Blog Media 
Seems odd with the early heat that they haven’t shown up. On the other hand, the migrating ones follow their favorite blooms so maybe their schedule hasn’t changed, heh? We are getting the usual traffic on our hummer feeders, and have spotted annas, here year round. We also have seen a few black chins, broadbills, and lucifers so far. If you like watching and photographing humming birds, Ramsey Canyon Reserve (Nature Conservancy) is the place to go.
https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/ramsey-canyon-preserve/
I love seeing a coyote in good health on my walks. But, I expect to see fewer rabbits and quail. We have a neighborhood Cooper’s hawk that leaves piles of dove feathers around the ‘hood. That included a fresh pile two weeks ago under a tree in our back yard.
Who could know? The hummers were back by late April last year, but this year has been a weirdo, meteorologically and otherwise.
As for the coyote, this is the first one in the ’hood for many a moon. Shortly after we moved here in 2014 we would see them regularly along the Linear Trail (a five-minute stroll from here) and Trail 365 (samey-same, but in the opposite direction). And they would occasionally serenade us of an evening. I miss that.
Could be that we’re up to our keisters in bunnies and squirrels lately and the ’yotes have just gotten the 411 on that.
Meanwhile, our Cooper’s hawk is AWOL. Talk about Death from Above. Doves were getting cricks in their necks trying to keep one eye on the sky.
PS: El Tour de ‘Zona starts here tomorrow. Riders were starting to show up this morning. Might wander around the park tomorrow afternoon to see what folks are riding these days.
https://www.eltourdezona.org/
I noticed that (there’s a listing in the BRAIN calendar). Meanwhile, Cactus Cup has come and gone at McDowell Mountain. And Sea Otter is on the horizon at Laguna Seca. Soon, winter, and cyclocross season. Assuming nobody blows up the friggin’ planet. …
O, for the Good Old Days®, when the bike magazines would pay me to feast my peepers upon such frivolity. The bike stuff, not Armageddon.
Up in then Paradise Hills neighborhood we have a family of Wily C’s running down my Street almost every morning my guess is they are bunny hunting from the Golf course a block away. The goldens look at them like just another dog getting off the leash. No hummers yet but the doves are going nuts.
When we relocated from Fanta Se to my mom’s place in Bibleburg, back in 1991, the coyotes ruled nearby Palmer Park, 730 acres of what the east side of town used to look like before the developers sank their fangs into the place.
I remember jogging into the Maizeland/Academy side of the park one snowy day and seeing a plump Wile E. emerge from a cluster of rocks. I stopped to watch him, and then another stepped out, and another, and another. … Happily, they weren’t interested in me, there being so many other, smaller, tastier bits roaming the park.
We pissed off to CrustyTucky in 1995, returned in 2002, and set up shop on the other side of the park, in the Greater Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood. Red foxes had the run of the place then. But before long the coyotes began expanding their territory from Palmer Park into the PJ golf course, like Russkies marching into Ukraine. The foxes bunkered up in William Jackson Palmer’s old irrigation canals, which still line the North End streets under cracked concrete lids that make them look like baby sidewalks. It was cool to see the kits poking their cute little heads out to gauge the enemy’s strength.
After we added Mister Boo to our menagerie the PJY&GC enjoyed a plague of skunks so bad we couldn’t keep the windows open at night. The smelly bastards stalked the streets in gangs like ICEholes, macing everything with a pulse. Happily, they saw our little black-and-white Japanese Chin as some sort of soul brother and gave him (and us) a free pass on walks.