At the top of the garden, ever since Abel and his people emptied the contents of the old garage, there have been two cabinets sitting in the very middle behind the lemon tree, back to back. While it gave me a relatively snail and slug free platform for a couple of neglected pots of seedlings, they never made me very happy so we finally finally moved them two weekends ago.
With the cabinets gone, I finally weeded the oxalis and onions that had been coming up between the doors and cabinet frames and all around them. In the process, I discovered a slender salamander. So interesting to find a new creature in your garden, especially when it's a beneficial one and not an evil looking bug... It's hard to see in my picture, but he's running away from me right in the middle of the frame, on his tiny little legs.
He clearly was enjoying the moist ground under the oxalis and gorging on the hundreds of slugs I had been finding all through my weeding. But he apparently wasn't the only one. Minutes later, I found an arboreal salamander too! You can just barely see the tiny yellow spots on his sides.
I'd read about them on another blog and knew not to pick this guy up in my hands because of his sharp sharp teeth. Reading about him before, I never thought I'd find one in my yard, either of these salamanders. They sound like creatures that couldn't survive the long dry summers away from creeks and rivers but that must not be true. I grew up in Contra Costa County and apparently they live there too, though probably not in any of my backyards which were mostly packed clay and grass.
The last in my new animal discoveries, I was not so happy to discover; not that this creature was deserving of my disgust.
Sadly, I found this Jerusalem Cricket and another one minutes later before I tried to find out what they were and I sent them to cricket heaven. I found them when I started to attack the dirt pile near the house, about a foot high and there, like the cabinets, ever since Abel's men took out our patio. I was trying to break it up and spread it out evenly on the ground when I broke into these guys' homes. Jerusalem Crickets are apparently everywhere in the west and far down past Mexico, though this is the first I've ever seen one, probably because they are nocturnal and prefer to stay underground. This one is trying to scramble out of a 3-inch pot so it's a good inch long. They look disgustingly evil but are apparently a good creature all around: They aerate the soil, eat dead animal matter and provide a good food source for many larger animals. I found this page about them quite interesting.
Nearly two months ago (only two posts ago, sorry), I wrote that I had bought a bird feeder and hung it on my magnolia tree. It's been so interesting watching the little birdies ever since flying to and from it, fluffing their wings and hopping around. I've never properly watched birds before and I'm not yet interested in doing so much farther than my own backyard but I've been searching around the internet to identify each and every bird I've seen so far. There aren't any rare birds yet, but I'll admit that I didn't even know half of the names of these birds. And here they are:
(Not my pictures, but I fully intend to capture my own birdie pictures once I have enough money to justify buying a new camera lens)
Male Anna's Hummingbird
Female Anna's Hummingbird
One female dive-bombed the Salvia next to my brick step. I was standing there, about to go back inside and I hear a loud crescendoing buzz and boom, it was there three feet from me. Goes from my Salvia to the Nemesia and the lavender before zooming off again.
The next three are my most common offenders, often jumping about and twittering in groups of 5 to 10.
Golden Crowned Sparrow
White Crowned Sparrow
House Finch
Mourning Dove - There's a pair that always come to the yard together and peck at the seeds spilled by the smaller birds and those mischievous little squirrels.
Scrub Jay
I've seen these before, even as a child and they don't come any more often since I put up my bird feeder. Interesting thing, these are actually a type of crow (which explains the loud screech it makes) and they sometimes eat the eggs of others birds and even small hatchlings. Still, they are beautiful.
Crow
I've only seen one land in my yard once, about two weeks ago, but who hasn't seen them everywhere else.
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